Judicial review, litigation effects and the ombudsman

Abstract

Judicial review is widely understood to be a remedy of last resort, but there remains little research on the extent to which the process can achieve meaningful redress. This article applies the results of a study into ombudsman judicial review to chart the outputs of the various stages of the process at which an outcome can be secured. The claim is made that ombudsman judicial review does secure a small level of success for claimants both in and out of court but that the rate of such success is lower for citizen claimants than the norm in all judicial review cases. The explanation provided for this pattern is that organisationally ombudsman schemes have learnt lessons from being repeat players in judicial review and are better equipped to integrate rule of law values than many other public bodies. Citizen claimants, by contrast, include a high proportion of inexperienced litigants-in-person for which the judicial review process is ill-designed to facilitate.