swarb.co.uk - law index
These cases are from the lawindexpro database. They are now being transferred to the swarb.co.uk website in a better form. As a case is published there, an entry here will link to it. The swarb.co.uk site includes many later cases.
Judicial Review - From: 1990 To: 1990
This page lists 9 cases, and was prepared on 08 August 2015.
Regina -v- Derbyshire County Council ex parte Noble [1990] ICR 808
1990
Woolf LJ
Judicial Review
Woolf LJ said: "Unfortunately in my view there is no universal test which will be applicable to all circumstances which will indicate clearly and beyond peradventure as to when judicial review is or is not available. It is a situation where the courts have, over the years, by decision in individual cases, indicated the approximate divide between those cases which are appropriate to be dealt with judicial review and those cases which are suitable dealt with in ordinary civil proceedings."
1 Citers
Regina -v- Blandford Justices [1990] 1 WLR 1940
1990
CA
Taylor LJ
Magistrates, Judicial Review
The applicant had been charged with public order offences and had been remanded in custody by the Magistrates' Court. He immediately commenced judicial review proceedings on the grounds that he was charged with an offence which was not punishable with a custodial sentence. A few days later he pleaded guilty to the offence and was released but continued with the judicial review proceedings. The Divisional Court had granted his application for judicial review and the Justices appealed to the Court of Appeal. Held. As a preliminary point, the proceedings were a criminal cause or matter. Taylor LJ said: "The application for judicial review was an application to the Divisional Court to review a decision of an inferior court in criminal proceedings then still in progress and was clearly an application in a criminal cause or matter. But Mr. Sankey says that, by the time the application was heard, the Divisional Court's judgment was not in a criminal cause or matter since the justices had made their final order. He sought to rationalise this approach by saying that, once the criminal proceedings were concluded in the magistrates' court, the decision of the Divisional Court could not affect their course and was not, therefore, in the cause or matter 'at whatever stage of the proceedings.' But, once the applicant had been granted bail the day after the challenged decision, any review by the Divisional Court of the challenged decision would not have affected the course of the criminal proceedings even if that decision had been made at some later 'stage of the proceedings' and before they were concluded. If the Divisional Court's decision was not in a criminal cause or matter, in what type of proceeding was it made? It cannot have been a decision in vacuo and, for my part, I see no basis in principle or authority for attributing such a chameleon character to a cause or matter as to make it change from criminal to civil simply because the proceedings are concluded or because the review of the decision in such cause or matter may be too late to affect the outcome of the proceedings. In my opinion, the judgment of the Divisional Court in the present case was made in a criminal cause or matter."
1 Citers
Regina -v- Blandford Magistrates Court ex parte Pamment [1990] 1 WLR 1490
1990
CA
Lord Donaldson MR, Taylor LJ
Judicial Review, Litigation Practice
The Applicant was charged and remanded into custody by the Justices, having refused conditional bail. Bail was later granted, but he sought judicial review of the original remand decision, just before his trial, which then intervened. After the trial, the Divisional Court quashed the remand decision adjourning the claim for damages. It was said that section 18(a) prevented an appeal. The Justices sought to appeal to the Court of Appeal, contending that given the termination of the criminal trial, the jurisdictional bar enshrined in Section 18(1)(a) of the Supreme Court Act 1981 did not apply. Held. The Court did not have jurisdiction to consider the appeal. It was argued that when the judicial review application was heard by the Divisional Court, the criminal proceedings were no longer in existence.
Taylor LJ said: "If the Divisional Court's decision was not in a criminal cause or matter, in what type of proceeding was it made? It cannot have been a decision in vacuo and, for my part, I see no basis in principle or authority for attributing such a chameleon character to a cause or matter as to make it change from criminal to civil simply because the proceedings are concluded or because the review of the decision in such cause or matter may be too late to affect the outcome of the proceedings. In my opinion, the judgment of the Divisional Court in the present case was made in a criminal cause or matter".
Lord Donaldson MR, emphasizing the words of Lord Esher MR "at whatever stage of the proceedings the question arises" [in Ex parte Woodhall 20 QBD 832, at p. 836], added that this formulation: "is apt to include the stage at which proceedings are in contemplation, the stage during which they are being prosecuted and the stage which follows following the giving of the judgment of the court, a stage at which it can be said that the court is functus officio".
1 Cites
1 Citers
Regina -v- Wolverhampton Coroner ex parte McCurbin [1990] 1 WLR 719
1990
CA
Woolf LJ
Coroners, Judicial Review
The judicial review test is not simply whether there has been an error of law, but also whether the error has or may have resulted in a wrong verdict being entered.
1 Cites
1 Citers
Regina -v- Exeter City Council, ex parte JL Thomas Co Ltd [1991] 1 QB 471; [1989] 29 RVR 134
1990
Simon Brown J
Judicial Review, Planning
A challenge was made to a decision of the local authority to grant planning permission for an area of land for residential development where it was surrounded by industrial works. It had no intention to arrange compulsory purchase. Held: The request for judicial review failed. The fact that the authority did not intend to use its powers for compulsory purchase did not vitiate the planning permission. It had not acted improperly or irrationally, and had not taken into account anything it should not have. An applicant for judicial review must in any event proceed "with greatest possible celerity."
Town and Country Planning Act 1991 29 51 245
1 Citers
Dubai Bank Ltd -v- Galadari (No 2) [1990] 1 WLR 731; [1990] Ch 98; [1990] 1 Lloyds Rep 120
1990
CA
Slade LJ, Dillon LJ
Judicial Review, Litigation Practice
An ex parte Mareva injunction had been obtained. It was said that there had been material non-disclosure of important facts. The plaintiff bank had been under the control of the Galadaris between 1970 and 1985, when it was taken over by the Government of Dubai. The bank complained that large amounts of interest on certain deposits had been unlawfully diverted into their own pockets. The bank obtained an ex parte Mareva injunction and ancillary orders for disclosure of assets, but this was later discharged by Morritt J. on the grounds that important facts known to the Government of Dubai had not been disclosed. Held: The court refused to interfere with his exercise of his discretion. It was submitted on behalf of the bank that even where there had been non-disclosure on an ex parte application, the court should only discharge an injunction or refuse to continue an injunction if the court was satisfied that the non-disclosure was a deliberate attempt to mislead the court or a wilful failure to inquire as to the obvious. The phrase "whose . . affidavits" extends to any affidavit sworn by a deponent who is not a party, but which is procured by and filed or used on behalf of a party. A copy of an unprivileged document does not become privileged merely because the copy is made for litigious purposes.
Dillon LJ said: "It is now accepted in this Court that, even if there has been material non-disclosure, the Court has a discretion whether or not to discharge an order obtained ex parte and a discretion whether or not to grant fresh injunctive relief Discharge of the order is not automatic on any non-disclosure being established of any fact known to the applicant which is found by the Court to have been material."
Staughton LJ said that the bank had put forward a good arguable case, and a prima facie case for likelihood of dissipation: "In any event there was also non-disclosure to be considered before the injunction was continued. The authorities show plainly that non-disclosure will, in an appropriate case, not only be a ground for discharging an ex parte order, but also a ground for refusing to make a fresh order inter partes. At least in one respect there was here non-disclosure which was in my view both serious and culpable. The Galadaris had specified what they said was their defence to the claim, and there can scarcely be any more important topic of disclosure than that. As to culpability, it is said the Dubai Bank did not know the facts, and that those whom they consulted in the Government of Dubai had forgotten them. But the letters were still in the Government's possession . . Once serious and culpable non-disclosure was established, the Judge had a balancing task to perform. On the one hand if justice required that a fresh injunction should be granted (which in the Judge's view it did not, but the contrary was arguable), it might be thought unjust to refuse one on the grounds of non-disclosure. On the other hand the Courts must uphold and enforce the duty of disclosure, as a deterrent to others, if they are not to be deceived on ex parte applications. The conflict between those principles is well illustrated in a passage from the judgment of Lord Justice Woolf in the Behbehani case."
RSC (NI) Order Rulle 11
1 Citers
Regina -v- Panel on Takeovers and Mergers ex parte Guinness Plc [1990] 1 QB 146; [1989] 1 All ER 509
1990
CA
Lord Donaldson MR, Lloyd LJ
Judicial Review, Administrative
The court asked about the standard of decision making at which a court could intervene: "Irrationality, at least in the sense of failing to take account of relevant factors or taking account of irrelevant factors, is a difficult concept in the context of a body which is itself charged with the duty of making a judgment on what is and what is not relevant, although clearly a theoretical scenario could be constructed in which the panel acted on the basis of considerations which on any view must have been irrelevant or ignored something which on any view must have been relevant." and Lloyd LJ: "Such questions are to be answered not by reference to Wednesbury unreasonableness, but 'in accordance with the principles of fair procedure which have been developed over the years and of which the courts are the author and sole judge'"
1 Citers
Regina -v- Dairy Produce Quota Tribunal for England and Wales, Ex parte Caswell; HL 17-May-1990 - [1990] 2 WLR 1320; [1990] 2 AC 738; [1990] UKHL 5; [1990] 2 All ER 434
Regina -v- Secretary of State ex parte Hammersmith and Fulham London Borough Council; HL 4-Oct-1990 - [1990] 3 WLR 898; [1991] 1 AC 521; [1991] UKHL 3
