Fury and bewilderment at plans to curb judicial reviews

It is entirely clear that this government views with disfavour the idea that anyone other than its cronies should benefit from enforceable legal rights.

Perhaps part of the solution to delays (whatever the cause) is to reverse cuts made to the HMCTS budget so that Courts have the resources to deal with applications promptly. This goes for litigation of all kinds. You can't have it both ways Dave.

What seems to be clear, from a series of pronouncements is that the Prime Minister cares little about the law, and is simply not interested in getting a better understanding.

How inconvenient! Let's shove up court fees and that'll sort the frivolous from the good claims. Oh dear, what nonsense. How dare those claimants make claims. Who do they think they are?

So we are bogged down with hopeless cases... someone needs to give Dave a quick bit of advice about the need for leave to bring an application....

Anyway if the Government didn't try to act in an unlawful manner then JR shouldn't be necessary.

Whilst I recognise the need for this route of litigation to obtain justice in certain cases, how many solicitors are there who, like me deal with the vast majority of their Judicial Reviews on the basis that they are completely frivolous and vexatious?
They take exactly the same time to respond to Pre-trial, draft an Acknowledgement of Service and sometimes I even to have to instruct counsel to go to an oral hearing.
And costs recovered? Don't make me laugh!
Stick to your guns, Cameron - let's get rid of the time-wasters.

Another knee jerk reaction to a suggestion that the legal gravy train might be curbed. There are of course proper uses for judicial review and Branson's is one of them. As I understand it, there is no suggestion that cases of this sort might be prevented in future, just a bit more expensive. Something needs to be done to curtail the - often - frivolous use of these proceedings to stop perfectly proper decisions.

This gravy train bears little resemblance to a certain well known product in the sense, that it is very rare indeed for members of the public to have the necessary resources to pursue such a remedy so that their lawyers can experience a wave of cascading costs.

I am a former member of the Environmental Law Association and I do know what I am talking about.

This is a crass incursion by the Executive into the remedies still available to a citizen under the Law in a democracy, successive Goverments having progressively destroyed legal aid.

What with the RTA debacle and the attempts to hold trials behind closed doors this is all getting a bit sinister. Has anyone seen Secret state?

Politicians always have a ready answer-it`s part of their professional armoury, hence the disproportionate number of barristers in Governments generally.
That ready answer will include high-sounding rhetoric over Freedom of Speech, The Rule of Law, I-contest -what-you-say-but-defend-your-right-to-say-it etc etc.

It was not always the historical case but nowadays it seems to me, the more the high-sounding rhetoric, generally the shabbier the detail.

Eventually the tenor of the answers en masse will depart so far from the reality that it will provoke a vehement reaction from those "at the coalface".
I personally believe that we are long past the stage where responses from Government about the Justice and courts system make any sense let alone carry any moral force - the question then becomes one of a suitable response.
I am not here to prescribe protest but I do personally believe that vigorous and militant protest is both appropriate and necessary now, not just letters to the liberal press. The Scots legal aid lawyers` actions showed us the way recently.

The problem is not the number of judicial reviews but the number of publicly funded reviews with no realistic propsect of success. Legal Aid should not be available for these cases. The money currently wasted on repeated use of this sort of process can be made available for proper legal aid in cases with genuine merit, outside the Administrative Court.

My practice was recently closed down by a costs order applied for by the Government's organ the Legal Services Commission after a long and brave, ultimately unsuccessful, battle to have a legal aid contract for the sick and dying to judicially review cuts in their care provision. I do not think that the changes in legal aid provision in this remarkably small and niche area of law have been coincidental coming, as they have, in advance of devastating cuts in Social Care and Health. It would behove the Prime Minister better not to disseminate in a pretence that his proposals are to prevent planning challenges. Were this the case then doubtless legislation could be confined just to that area. In my time in the field I was offered the opportunity to be an approved provider of legal services to Local Authorities and the NHS, considered for an OBE, and conversely threatened that unless I gave up my work for disabled people then "the State will discredit and bankrupt you and there is no escape". I received notice of prosecution under the Solicitors Act for bringing my profession into disrepute two working days after refusing the latter "offer". It spectacularly failed but my business has been closed and I face homelessness and bankruptcy. I think we can all understand the Prime Ministers wish to save public funds. More difficult to understand is that the playing out of this desire is to steal the widows houses, to leave disabled adults sitting in their own waste because of an inadequate level of care at home, to leave terribly deformed children in the sole care of exhausted and desperate mothers each and every night.

Having considered the above posts I feel a sense of intense relief that I was indoctrinated in the subversive (and most un-middle class English) belief that all the hallmarks of a civilised society have had to be fought for by the have-nots against the haves. None. I repeat, none, have been granted gratis by those in power. It is a lot less stressful to be able to foresee and foretell the constant kow-towing of Governments to the Multinationals and the Super- Rich-it saves so much heartache otherwise caused by liberal confusion and disappointment at the steady erosion of those civilised values such as access to justice, helping the vulnerable etc.