The implications of JR55 for administrative justice

Richard Kirkham and Brian Thompson

This blog first appeared on the UKAJI website, 13 June 2016

 

Introduction

The case of JR55 was the first occasion in which a decision of a public services ombudsman scheme in the UK had been heard in the Supreme Court. Unfortunately for the ombudsman sector, it did not go well. This post does not offer a full analysis of the case (some further reflections are presented here), but instead focusses only on some of the potential implications for our understandings of the law around ombudsman schemes.

A reply to Judicial Capture of Political Accountability

This post first appeared on the website of the Judicial Power Project on 7 June 2016.

Recently, the Judicial Power Project posted a list of 50 problematic cases, to which others have responded critically. The list of cases was intended to provoke debate, the more important task though is to understand and reflect upon the theoretical assumptions that underpin the list. In an impressive paper, Jason Varuhas has done this with regard to one of the cases that the Judicial Power Project identified as ‘problematic’: Bradley v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. There is no room in this post to take on his full critique, instead I point to some issues that require further debate.

JR55: Five activist strategies a judge should avoid

The following blog was published on the website of the UK Constitutional Law Association on 30 May 2016

The ruling of the Supreme Court in JR55 raises a host of issues which deserve a much fuller analysis than can be developed in this post. The best reading of the case is that its impact is largely isolated to the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Complaints scheme involved, an ombudsman scheme which closed on 1^st April as a result of the Public Services Ombudsman Act (Northern Ireland) 2016. In the words of Lord Sumption who gave the only judgment:

The various [ombudsman] enactments have a strong family resemblance. But some of them have distinctive features which mean that considerable caution is required before principles derived from one legislative scheme can be read across to another. [para.1]

However, the judgment leaves some rich pickings for those who might want to reopen points of law that had previously been thought settled.

Judicial Neutering of the Powers of the Ombudsman

The following blog was written in partnership with Brian Thompson, University of Liverpool, and was published on the website of the UK Constitutional Law Association on 10 November 2015


Conventional legal understandings of the powers of public service ombudsman schemes rest on the twin principles that they (a) have significant discretion with which to implement their powers and (b) have to operate fair processes, albeit not necessarily processes which meet the form and standards of the courtroom. One ongoing legal case in the health sector is challenging these central premises and is set to become the first ombudsman case to reach the Supreme Court. This blog highlights the inherent risks to the ombudsman model if the applicant’s arguments in that case are upheld.