Qureshi, R (on the application of) v The University of Manchester

A claimant cannot use an amendment to judicial review grounds to extend a challenge to a later and distinct decision without permission. A challenge to factual findings in an investigative report must identify an error of public law; disagreement with the findings, particularly where the claimant declined to provide relevant evidence, is insufficient. An investigator’s appointment through solicitors acting for the public body does not itself establish a lack of independence. Costs may exceptionally be awarded against a claimant who persists with hopeless and out-of-time proceedings despite a sensible offer resolving the original claim.

The claimant challenged reports concerning the University of Manchester’s appointment of a Professor of Commercial Law. The university agreed that the earlier reports should be quashed and agreed to pay the claimant’s costs in that respect.

The claimant then sought to amend his judicial review grounds to challenge a later report by Mr John Cavanagh QC concerning alleged conflicts of interest and procedural defects in the appointment process. The issues were whether permission had already extended to that report, whether the proposed grounds were arguable, whether the application was out of time, and what costs order should follow.

1. The earlier permission did not cover the later report. Permission granted in September 2009 concerned the earlier panel and review reports. It did not extend to the distinct decision represented by the later Cavanagh Report. If it had purported to do so, that permission would have been set aside in the exceptional circumstances.
2. The proposed grounds were not arguable. Mr Cavanagh’s appointment through the university’s solicitors did not compromise his independence. There was no evidence that his inquiry was conducted to assist the defence of the judicial review.
3. The relevant university rules did not require ordinary professional friendship or a relatively limited social relationship between a panel member and a candidate to be treated as establishing partiality. The recruitment policy and Ordinance XVIII could not be read so broadly. A relationship might nevertheless appropriately be disclosed, and the report had considered the evidence on disclosure and withdrawal.
4. A disagreement with an investigator’s factual findings is not enough. The claimant had to identify a public law error. Mr Cavanagh was entitled to assess the conflicting evidence and accept Professor Birds’s account. The claimant’s refusal to provide evidence materially weakened his challenge to findings based on disputed facts.
5. The application was also substantially out of time. The court had to address the later decision as a discrete decision rather than permit an ongoing challenge to every subsequent stage of the process.
6. The amendment application was dismissed. The earlier reports were quashed as a basis for further university deliberations, and the university was ordered to pay the claimant’s costs of that part of the proceedings. Applying the Mount Cook principles by analogy, but exceptionally because the claimant persisted with hopeless and out-of-time points after a sensible offer, the university received £1,000 costs for the day.

not stated in the judgment.