Last week I missed an interesting Administrative Court judgment on an important issue: whether the then Home Secretary, Charles Clarke (gosh – doesn’t that seem a long time ago?) acted lawfully when, in April 2006, he announced in Parliament the abolition, without notice, of the ex gratia scheme for compensation of miscarriages of justice. At the same time he announced that solicitors’ costs under the remaining statutory scheme would be awarded at a much lower level than before.
The background to the case is that there used to be two parallel schemes for compensation: the non-statutory ex gratia scheme was introduced in the 1950s, and was developed further by Roy Jenkins and maglie calcio poco prezzo Douglas Hurd when they were Home Secretary, in the 1960s and then in the 1980s. Then, the UK gave statutory effect to its obligations under article 14.6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by section 133 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, setting out a statutory compensation scheme. But the broader ex gratia scheme carried on alongside it. Charles Clarke decided this was an anomaly and said he’d only consider new applications under the statutory scheme. He also said that legal costs for applications would be paid at a lower rate than before.
The main issue in the judicial review was whether the Home Secretary had a legal duty to consult with people like to be affected by withdrawal of the discretionary scheme, before making a definitive announcement; or, what amounts to the same thing, whether he had acted in breach of their legitimate expectation to be able to make representations in advance of his decision.
May LJ had no difficulty in dismissing the claim, and Gray J agreed. The Cabinet Office Code of Practice on Consultation did not require consultation; nor was there any promise or http://www.nflauthenticjersey.com/ representation either that the scheme would continue or that the Home Secretary would consult or give notice before withdrawing it. The decision not to consult or give notice was not so unfair as to amount to an abuse of power.
An interesting case to note, given the recent flurry of interest in judicial review claims on the basis on inadequate consultation, following the unusual Greenpeace case earlier this year, in which the government failed to live up in practice to its promise there’d be the “fullest public consultation” about the future of nuclear power.
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