Judicial Review and Courts Bill — Clause 1 — Quashing Orders — Effective Remedy vs Adequate Redress — 25 Jan 2022 at 16:13

The majority of MPs voted to only allow a court to delay, or remove retrospective effects of, a court order quashing a decision made by a public body in cases where that action offers "an effective remedy to the claimant and any other person materially affected" rather than where it merely "appears" to "provide adequate redress".

MPs were considering the Judicial Review and Courts Bill.^[1][2][3]

The amendment rejected in this vote was

• Amendment 25, page 2, leave out lines 24 to 32 and insert—
• “(9) Provision may only be made under subsection (1) if and to the extent that the court considers that an order making such provision would, as a matter of substance, offer an effective remedy to the claimant and any other person materially affected by the impugned act in relation to the relevant defect.”

The rejected amendment was accompanied by the following explanatory statement from its proposer:

• This amendment would remove the presumption and make it a precondition of the court’s exercise of the new remedial powers that they should offer an effective remedy to the claimant and any other person materially affected by the impugned act.

Had it not been rejected the amendment would have impacted Part 1 of the Bill, headed "Judicial Review" and in particular Clause 1 of the Bill^[2], which provided for a new clause to be inserted into the Senior Courts Act 1981 titled: 29A Further provision in connection with quashing orders which began:

• (1) A quashing order may include provision—
• (a) for the quashing not to take effect until a date specified in the order, or
• (b) removing or limiting any retrospective effect of the quashing.

The element which would have been removed had the amendment not been rejected stated:

• (9) If—
• (a) the court is to make a quashing order, and
• (b) it appears to the court that an order including provision under subsection (1) would, as a matter of substance, offer adequate redress in relation to the relevant defect, the court must exercise the powers in that subsection accordingly unless it sees good reason not to do so.
• (10) In applying the test in subsection (9)(b), the court is to take into account, in particular, anything within subsection (8)(e).

Subsection 8(e) required the court to have regard to:

• so far as appears to the court to be relevant, any action taken or proposed to be taken, or undertaking given, by a person with responsibility in connection with the impugned act;

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• [1] Parliament's webpage on the Judicial Review and Courts Bill, Parliament.uk
• [2] Judicial Review and Courts Bill as amended in committee, 23 November 2021, Parliament.uk
• [3] Explanatory notes to the Judicial Review and Courts Bill as introduced, 27 July 2021, Parliament.uk

Debate in Parliament |