Application for Permission v Tebbut

Judicial review is available only for a complaint susceptible to public-law review. It cannot provide a remedy for a long-standing private dispute about whether tax payments were credited, particularly where the relevant conduct occurred many years earlier and no recent decision is identified. The court’s role as a court of last resort means that available remedies must ordinarily be exhausted; it does not give the court power to resolve matters outside its public-law jurisdiction. Where the claimant identifies no arguable public-law error, maladministration or reviewable decision, permission must be refused.

The claimants, former traders, sought permission to bring judicial review proceedings against the Commissioners of Customs and Excise. They alleged that two payments of £5,000 made towards VAT liabilities had not been credited and that the Commissioners had failed to acknowledge the error, apologise, compensate them or negotiate a settlement.

The claimants had previously pursued a private law action, which was struck out for want of a cause of action, and their application for judicial review had been refused on the papers by Bennett J. They renewed the application before the Administrative Court. The central issues were whether any recent reviewable conduct existed and whether the alleged failure to deal with the payments amounted to maladministration or another public-law complaint.

1. Permission refused. The claimants had not identified with sufficient clarity the decision or course of conduct challenged, but the substance of the complaint concerned the alleged failure to credit £10,000 against a VAT liability and the Commissioners’ subsequent refusal to settle or compensate.
2. The conduct potentially susceptible to judicial review had occurred many years earlier. The Commissioners’ continuing failure to accept the claimants’ position did not create a recent decision or reviewable conduct. The complaints were therefore out of time, and the delay supplied no possible basis for judicial review.
3. There was also no arguable public-law foundation. The dispute was whether the claimants had discharged a tax liability by making the alleged payments. The Commissioners had not accepted that they had done so, but had proposed a settlement under which the parties would forgo their respective claims. The claimants had apparently not accepted that proposal, and the Commissioners had not pursued the outstanding tax or costs.
4. The claimants’ assertion that the Commissioners had failed to follow a policy of acknowledging mistakes and paying compensation did not establish maladministration or confer jurisdiction on the Administrative Court. Judicial review cannot be used to resolve this private dispute or to provide a remedy where no reviewable legal complaint is identified.
5. The description of judicial review as a remedy of last resort means that other remedies must be exhausted where a complaint is otherwise susceptible to review. It does not mean that the court can act where it has no public-law jurisdiction.

The application had previously been refused on the papers by Bennett J. The claimants renewed it before the Administrative Court, where permission was refused.