Jurisdiction Revisited: The Inherent Supervisory Power of the Courts and the Case of R (Ignaoua) V SSHD [2013] EWCA Civ 1498

Abstract

The Court of Appeal handed down its decision in R (Ignaoua) v SSHD on 21 November. Ignaoua emphasizes that Parliament does not purport to remove the court’s jurisdiction to entertain judicial review proceedings under Section 15 of the Justice and Security Act 2013. This paper argues that the provisions in both the primary and secondary legislation in Ignaoua are clear enough to convey Parliament’s intention to give the Home Secretary the power to terminate judicial review proceedings or appeal from judicial review proceedings relating to a direction to exclude a foreign national from the United Kingdom. However, the Court of Appeal used a long established common law principle that a statutory provision would be interpreted narrowly if it purports to deny access to the courts unless it has clear words to that effect.