Judicial Review Proceedings: A Practitioner's Guide

As with most LAG productions, the emphasis in this well-produced book is practical. Jonathan Manning, a practising barrister, has written a short but comprehensive guide to judicial review in its procedure and substantive law.

The book is logically structured with chapters on bodies susceptible to review, available remedies, and grounds for judicial review applications. There are helpful appendices which contain most of the forms and precedents the practitioner is likely to need. Also included are all the practice directions relevant to practice in the Crown Office List. A feature of the book is the chapter on substantive subject areas of judicial review with sections on EC law, immigration and other areas tackled by RSC Order 53.

Inevitably there are important omissions. For example, the treatment of EC grounds for judicial review is extremely brief. The section on legitimate expectation assumes it is solely a procedural doctrine, an assumption not in accord with recent case law. And there is no real analysis of the duty to give reasons and the pivotal decision of Justice Sedley in R v Higher Education Funding Council, ex parte Institute of Dental Surgery is not mentioned.

My criticism is that none of the recent controversies are really debated. But this does not detract from the fact that it is a helpful tool for inexperienced practitioners in this increasingly arcane area of the law.