The Judicial Review Process: Step by Step

Judicial review deadlines run from when the grounds to make the claim first arose, not from when you found out or finished complaining. The claim form must be filed promptly, and in any event not later than 3 months after the grounds first arose. For decisions made by the Secretary of State or a local planning authority under the planning acts, the deadline is just six weeks. Nothing in the pre-action correspondence stops the clock, so map out your deadline before doing anything else.

The Pre-Action Protocol for Judicial Review expects you to send a letter to the defendant public body to identify the issues in dispute and establish whether they can be narrowed. The letter should contain the date and details of the decision, act or omission being challenged, a clear summary of the facts and the legal basis for the claim, using the standard format at Annex A of the protocol. Sending the letter does not extend your time limit.

Defendants should normally respond within 14 days using the standard format at Annex B of the protocol, and failure to do so will be taken into account by the court, with possible sanctions unless there are good reasons. The response should state clearly whether the claim is conceded in full, in part, or not at all. Use this window to consider whether the dispute can be resolved without proceedings — silence in response to an invitation to use ADR, or a refusal to participate, might be considered unreasonable by the court and can carry costs consequences.

File the judicial review claim form N461 at an Administrative Court office — the court sits in Birmingham, Cardiff, Leeds, London and Manchester. The fee on an application for permission to apply for judicial review is £179. In genuinely urgent cases there is a separate urgent judicial review claim form (N463). Your claim form and grounds need to set out what you are challenging, why it is unlawful, and the remedy you seek.

A defendant (or interested party) who wants to take part in the judicial review must file an acknowledgment of service not more than 21 days after service of the claim form, usually including summary grounds of resistance. Unusually, the time limits under this rule may not be extended by agreement between the parties, so the timetable at this stage is fixed.

The court's permission to proceed is required in every claim for judicial review. A judge will normally consider permission on the papers. If permission is refused (or granted on limited grounds) you can usually request reconsideration at an oral hearing — the request must be filed within 7 days after service of the court's reasons, and the fee for a request to reconsider at a hearing is £449. The parties are given at least 2 days' notice of the hearing date.

If permission is granted, a further fee of £897 is payable to continue the claim to a full hearing. The case then moves into its substantive phase: the defendant files detailed grounds and evidence, and the parties prepare for the substantive hearing in line with the case management directions. The Administrative Court Judicial Review Guide covers substantive hearings, case management and costs in detail.

At the full hearing the court decides whether the decision, act or omission was unlawful. The judicial review procedure is used where the claimant seeks a mandatory order (compelling action), a prohibiting order (preventing action), a quashing order (setting the decision aside) or an injunction, and it may also be used for a declaration. A claim for judicial review may include a claim for damages, restitution or the recovery of a sum due, but may not seek such a remedy alone. Cases are heard by a High Court judge, or a Divisional Court with a High Court judge and a Court of Appeal judge.