Judicial Review / Public Law
What is public law?
Public bodies must not exceed their legal powers and must comply with their stated duties. Simply put, public law is concerned with the relationship between the government (public bodies) and individuals including companies and other organisations. This is important, as the government and its public bodies can make decisions on the rights of individuals and organisations but must act in accordance with law. When the law has not been complied with this may lead to a claim for judicial review of an action or decision made by the public body.
What is judicial review?
Judicial review is a process where the lawfulness of a decision or action made by a public body is questioned. A judicial review can confirm that the proper procedures have been followed in any decision or action, and that the law has been interpreted and applied correctly or alternatively confirm that it has not.
If you require the services of traditional lawyers as well as an experienced public law/judicial review law barrister, please contact my clerk and ask for Stuart Jessop on 0207 797 8408 or info@stuartjessopbarrister.co.uk.
As a barrister, I can assist you with all aspects of public law and judicial reviews.
Expertise
Stuart’s practice is almost exclusively focused on cases which have, at their heart, decisions by public bodies, affecting companies, other organisations or individuals in different ways. This can include decisions by regulators or local authorities in respect or permits, licences, planning permissions, regulatory enforcement or prosecutions as well as other decisions of public bodies and connected matters. He is regularly instructed to advise and act in relation to the bringing or resisting of judicial review claims, statutory appeals and appeals by way of case stated, as well as acting and advising in other public and administrative law matters generally, but in particular in the following areas:
- Regulation and regulatory enforcement
- Prosecutions and criminal justice/surveillance/RIPA
- Law enforcement
- Powers and decisions of inferior courts and tribunals
- Planning and Environmental
- Licensing
- Local Government
- Human Rights
- Anti-social behaviour
- Inquests
- Information Law (Data Protection/F.O.I – see Regulatory Law section below)
Stuart regularly advises in respect of local authority policies, powers and duties both for Councils and for organisations and individuals affected by those powers and policies.
Recent Cases
- Judicial Review of a local authority’s decision to refuse to grant a licence for the Claimant’s music festival shortly before it was due to take place.
- Judicial Review of the Food Standards Agency’s decision not to grant approval for the Claimant’s abattoir on animal welfare grounds
- Judicial Review by a claimant seeking to challenge the local authority’s delegated power to bring a prosecution for a breach of planning enforcement notice and the significance of a failure to give reasons for prosecuting the director of the company.
- Acting for a local authority in resisting a claim for Judicial Review in respect of a certificate of lawful use in the context of consideration as to whether there had been compliance with a planning enforcement notice.
- Advising a police force on the scope and meaning of section 196C of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 in respect of a request by a local planning authority for police assistance on conducting planning enquiries on a site where other agencies were also present purporting to be acting under the Act.
- A challenge to a magistrates’ court’s decision to allow an application by the defence in an environmental prosecution to stay the proceedings on the basis that the original proceedings had been dismissed for want of a prosecutor and the new proceedings were therefore unlawful.
- A case concerning the power of the magistrates’ court to re-open civil proceedings in that court.
- Advising a property development company on the merits of challenging a Breach of Condition Notice by way of Judicial Review
- Advising an objector to a grant of planning permission the merits of challenging the decision alleged to be contrary to the local plan, by way of Judicial Review.
- Advising and representing a taxi Association in a challenge to a licensing authority’s proposed policy on granting new PHV and taxi licences.
Blog
Premises licence appeal victory despite immigration offences
Stuart Jessop successfully represented the premises licence holder of a fast…. [more]
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Local authority withdraw prosecution in HMO licensing case
Stuart Jessop represented a Landlord/ Managing Agent summonsed in a….. [more]
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Low Fine for Breach of Planning Enforcement
On 10th February 2017 Stuart Jessop represented a landlord who faced a Local Authority prosecution for a breach of a planning enforcement notice under section 179 Town and Country Planning Act 1990. The breach occurred over a four year period and rent had been...
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