Independent Review of Administrative Law

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

I thank the Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, and I do indeed remember my appearance before it. As I explained to the Committee then, the review was one distinct part of a process that I am already undertaking. In January, I announced the creation of an independent review to consider the operation of the Human Rights Act, chaired by Sir Peter Gross, a former Lord Justice of Appeal, with a diverse panel—in terms of geography and, indeed, opinion—across the United Kingdom and Ireland. That is part of an overall process that will result not in a commission trying to deal with all aspects but will demonstrate and reveal the Government’s approach to rebalancing our constitution in the finest traditions of what we do and what we represent in this country.

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP) [V]]

The Faculty of Advocates, in its evidence submission to the review, stated:

“There is no case for substantive statutory intervention in the judicial review process. Such an intervention risks artificially stymying the development of the law of judicial review”,

and

“judicial review does not suffer from a lack of clarity, and any attempt to codify it is likely to undermine the very flexibility that renders it effective.”

Will the Lord Chancellor advise the faculty and the House why this astute advice has been disregarded by his Department?