Judicial review

This is a legal process in which a court will look at how a public body acted or made a decision, and say whether it did so in a lawful, fair and reasonable way.

This process is used when there is no other way of resolving the matter. Professional legal help should be obtained when applying for judicial review.

The application for it must be made as soon as possible and within three months maximum from the date of the matter being complained of happening. 

There are two key stages to the process:

1. a formal pre-action letter is sent, explaining the issue and giving the public body time to fix the problem, and
2. a review by the court of how the public body acted or came to a decision, and whether it acted in a lawful, fair and reasonable way.

If the public body did not act in a lawful, fair and reasonable way, the court can require it to do (or stop doing something) to address this.

You can find out more about judicial review on our website.