An application for permission to bring judicial review and the judicial review proceedings themselves (whether in a civil or criminal cause or matter) are all civil proceedings and are caught by a civil proceedings order against the applicant.
Evans LJ concluded that all proceedings under RSC Order 53 were civil proceedings: ‘The matter can be tested in this way. So far as these proceedings are concerned, that is to say, Mr Gleaves’ application for judicial review . . there is no prosecutor and there is no defendant. Indeed . . the intended defendant in the Magistrates Court is not necessarily a party to these proceedings.
This is an application by Mr Gleaves and the respondent is the Tottenham Magistrates Court. These are civil proceedings. Mr Gleaves seeks to invoke the powers of the civil courts admittedly for the purposes, as he sees them, of the criminal proceedings which he seeks to institute in the magistrates court but does not alter the fact in my view that he is invoking the powers of the civil court and that an application under O 53 at all its stages, even when the application relates to a criminal cause or matter, is nevertheless properly to be regarded as a civil proceeding.’
Judges:
Evans LJ and Otton J
Citations:
CO/2253/90, Unreported 18 December 1992
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Approved – Ew v Director of Public Prosecutions and Others CA 11-Feb-2010
The claimant was subject to an order requiring him to obtain leave before commencing any civil proceedings. He commenced a private prosecution which the respondent later decided to take over and discontinue. He sought judicial review of that . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Litigation Practice, Judicial Review
Updated: 02 May 2022; Ref: scu.408585