Judicial Review - The Process

What is a judicial review?
A judicial review is the legal procedure where the courts ensure that public bodies such as local authorities, Ministers, Departments of State, regulatory bodies and, to some extent Parliament, operate within the law when making decisions. One such high-profile case was the High Court ruling in favour of Camelot after the Lottery regulatory body had rejected its application and decided to pursue the bid only with Sir Richard Branson's People's Lottery. The court found the Lottery Commission had not acted in accordance with the rules and they had to reopen negotiations with Camelot.

A judicial review will deal with the process and the legality of the decisions of public bodies. While the UK Parliament has a right to introduce laws, it must ensure that they do not contravene European legislation. If UK laws are contrary to European measures, the European law will prevail and the UK law can be struck down by the courts by way of a judicial review. The PCG is claiming that IR35 contravenes European law.

A judicial review will not examine the 'good' or 'bad' of a measure or consider if Minister or Department of State might have acted differently - the court will only concern itself with the lawfulness of that measure .

The European Communities Act 1972 provides that where European Union law applies, EU law overrides UK law.

The legal process
The first stage of the judicial review process is to seek the permission of the High Court to proceed with the judicial review. Both parties have an opportunity to present an outline of their case and the judge will decide whether there is sufficient merit to proceed. The Inland Revenue opposed PCG's case at this stage and a mini-trial ensued in October 2000 after which the Revenue's case was dismissed on all courts and permission was granted.

The date was then set for a full hearing. - March 13 to 15, 2001, in the High Court, London.

The court could at any stage decide there are issues on which the advice of the European Court of Justice is required and refer those issues to the ECJ.