What is a judicial review?
What is a judicial review?
A judicial review seeks to determine whether the government has acted ultra vires (beyond its powers). It is literally, a review of government actions by the judiciary, checking whether the government have exceeded their power. Anyone can seek a judicial review.
The following are two examples of where the Supreme Court has found against the government in a judicial review:
Jeremy Hunt v. Lewisham Hospital, 2013
The Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt attempted to shut down the maternity and A&E services at Lewisham Hospital. The Supreme Court said he did not have the power to do this.
UNISON v Lord Chancellor, 2017
The government introduced fees of £1,200 to bring a case to an employment tribunal. The Supreme Court said that this was ultra vires.
As the cases above demonstrate, a judicial review can have a considerable impact and limit the actions taken by a government.
However, the number of judicial reviews has decreased significantly in recent years as the government has sought to make it more difficult for them to be pursued arguing that the judiciary should do less to over rule the decisions made by the elected Parliament. In 2014, the government banned the use of legal aid to fund judicial reviews and a Judicial Review and Court Bill in 2022 made it even more difficult to apply for a judicial review.
The impact of this was that judicial reviews fell by 44% between 2015-2019.
It should also be said that the judicial reviews do not always find against the government. In fact, most judicial reviews (around 65%) find in favour of the government.
So, though judicial reviews can be an obstacle for the government, the number has decreased and many find in favour of the government thus meaning that they are far less of an obstacle than they have been previously.
