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04 November 2020 / Michael Zander KC
Issue: 7909 / Categories: Features , Judicial review
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Judicial review does not need legislative reform

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Michael Zander on what the authors of De Smith have told the Government’s inquiry

The Independent Review of Administrative Law (IRAL), chaired by Lord Faulks QC, has been asked by the Government: ‘Does judicial review strike the right balance between enabling citizens to challenge the lawfulness of government action and allowing the executive and local authorities to carry on the business of government?’ It would be naïve to ignore the reality that the question comes with a heavily loaded political agenda. The inquiry closed the portal for submissions on 26 October 2020 and is asked to report by the end of the year.

The authors of the leading work on the subject, De Smith’s Judicial Review (Sir Jeffrey Jowell QC, Ivan Hare QC, Catherine Donnelly SC and Lord Woolf), have, at my request, very kindly allowed me to publicise their 19-page submission to the Faulks inquiry. (To read the De Smith response in full please visit https://bit.ly/2GoTGkZ.)

Codification?

The Review asks: ‘Whether the amenability of public law decisions

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