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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Debate in Parliament |

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Party Summary

Votes by party, red entries are votes against the majority for that party.

What is Tell? '+1 tell' means that in addition one member of that party was a teller for that division lobby.

What are Boths? An MP can vote both aye and no in the same division. The boths page explains this.

What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.

PartyMajority (No)Minority (Aye)BothTurnout
Alba0 1050.0%
Alliance0 10100.0%
Con305 (+2 tell) 0085.0%
DUP0 6075.0%
Green0 10100.0%
Independent1 2060.0%
Lab0 156 (+2 tell)079.4%
LDem0 130100.0%
PC0 2066.7%
SDLP0 20100.0%
SNP0 43095.6%
Total:306 227083.9%

Rebel Voters - sorted by vote

MPs for which their vote in this division differed from the majority vote of their party. You can see all votes in this division, or every eligible MP who could have voted in this division

Sort by: Name | Constituency | Party | Vote

NameConstituencyPartyVote
no rebellions

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