O, R (On the Application Of) v Secretary of State for International Development

Standing in judicial review is context-dependent. The sufficient-interest requirement is liberal and does not require a claimant to show a private grievance in every case. A claimant is not a busybody where he has a reasonable concern in the challenged conduct, including a direct personal connection with the subject matter and a credible possible link to the public authority’s decisions.

Standing and disputed factual issues should ordinarily be assessed at the permission stage only where the answer is obvious. Permission should be granted where the claim is reasonably arguable and merits full investigation. General policy commitments to transparency do not, without more, create a binding commitment to publish a particular assessment document.

The claimant, an Ethiopian citizen and alleged victim of abuses associated with Ethiopia’s Commune Development Programme, sought permission to challenge the Secretary of State’s administration of development assistance under section 1 of the International Development Act 2002.

He alleged failures to operate a lawful process for assessing Ethiopia’s compliance with human-rights conditions and a breach of transparency policies by refusing to publish a November 2013 Partnership Principles Assessment. The Secretary of State disputed standing, timeliness and arguability. The court considered standing, the arguability of the assessment-process ground, and whether the transparency policies required publication.

1. Standing. The sufficient-interest requirement under section 31(3) of the Senior Courts Act 1981 is a jurisdictional threshold, assessed by judgment rather than discretion. Its content is inherently elastic and depends on the context and circumstances of the case. The court should avoid an unduly restrictive approach which treats judicial review only as a means of redressing individual grievances. A personal interest is not always required where a claimant acts in the public interest and can genuinely say that the issue directly affects the section of the public represented.
2. The claimant had established an arguable personal and direct connection with the challenged subject matter. His evidence showed that he had been displaced, abused and separated from his family. He had also presented a sufficient factual basis for a possible link between UK aid, the Promotion of Basic Services Programme and the Commune Development Programme. The alleged impact was indirect but not remote. He was therefore not a busybody and had a sufficient interest.
3. Standing should ordinarily be decided at the permission stage only where the issue is obvious. Where unresolved factual issues may bear on the claimant’s interest or reasonable concern, the court should provisionally accept an uncontradicted factual account for that purpose. The standing objection was rejected.
4. Ground 1. The challenge to the process used to assess Ethiopia’s human-rights record was reasonably arguable and required a full hearing. The issues included the public authority’s duty to take reasonable steps to obtain information relevant to its functions, the possible enhanced importance of inquiry where fundamental rights are engaged, and alleged non-compliance with the Defendant’s policy concerning objective benchmarks. The court did not determine the merits.
5. Ground 2. General commitments to transparency did not amount to a commitment to publish the Partnership Principles Assessment, wholly or partly, or every document within its class. Permission on that ground was refused. The court left open whether publication of aspects of an assessment might be necessary for a lawful process of gathering and assessing relevant evidence.

First-instance permission decision in the Administrative Court. No earlier decision in the same proceedings is stated as having determined the merits.