Interim Relief in the Public Law Context

Extract

The remedial aspects of judicial review illustrate in particularly vivid form the divergent nature of public and private law proceedings. The prerogative orders—mandamus, certiorari and prohibition—are available only via judicial review. Leave is required for judicial review but not for private law actions. By contrast with the private law writ procedure, judicial review must be brought promptly and within three months. In judicial review, a remedy can still be denied to the applicant who establishes a substantive case. As the Law Commission made clear in its Report Administrative Law: Judicial Review and Statutory Appeals, “[j]udicial review often involves values and policy interests, which must be balanced against and may transcend the individual interests, which are normally the subject of litigation between private citizens” (Law Com. No. 226, para. 2.1).