Time Limits for Challenging Administrative Policies and Guidance

Time is short for bringing a claim by way of judicial review. What triggers time running under the Civil Procedure Rules is therefore highly significant. This article examines the trigger for bringing a challenge to administrative policy or guidance. Such documents seek to guide public bodies as to how to exercise their decision-making functions. They can themselves be subject to judicial review. As to the timing to bring such a challenge, the law currently draws a distinction between claims which are related to an impact upon the claimant, and those where the claim is brought in the abstract. More rooted in principle and practical reality would be to distinguish grounds of challenge which argue that a policy was directing a decision-maker to act unlawfully, from those claims which merely argue that there had been a legal flaw in the adoption of the policy. For the former type of challenge, this article argues that there should be no time limit for bringing a claim, albeit a court would be able to refuse relief or make a prospective-only quashing order, in the exercise of its discretion.