Okoturo, R (on the application of) v Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police

A stay of judicial review proceedings should be lifted where related complaints or appeals provide alternative and potentially more appropriate avenues for addressing the claimant’s concerns, and there is no continuing reason to hold the proceedings in abeyance. The court may list a renewed permission hearing while those other processes continue, particularly where they may render judicial review unnecessary.

The claimant challenged the Metropolitan Police’s recording and disclosure of information held on its Merlin database. Permission to apply for judicial review had initially been refused, and a renewed application was stayed pending further consideration by the police, an appeal to the IPCC or IOPC, and a possible complaint to the Information Commissioner. The police subsequently reconsidered the complaint, the claimant appealed to the IOPC, and he complained to the Information Commissioner. The issue was whether the stay should continue.

1. The stay was lifted. The claimant’s pending appeal to the IOPC and complaint to the Information Commissioner demonstrated that other, potentially more appropriate, courses of action remained available concerning the information recorded by the Metropolitan Police and its subsequent use.
2. Those alternative processes meant that the judicial review proceedings might ultimately prove unnecessary. In any event, there was no continuing justification for keeping the proceedings in abeyance.
3. The renewed application for permission to apply for judicial review was directed to be listed for a one-hour hearing. The claimant was required to file and serve his skeleton argument seven working days before the hearing, with the respondent’s skeleton argument due four working days before it.
4. The respondent’s application for costs of the hearing was refused. Although the claimant had opposed lifting the stay, his personal representation and the useful progress made justified making no order as to costs.

The judgment records that permission to apply for judicial review was refused on the papers on 31 October 2017. On renewal, the application was heard on 28 November 2017 by Helen Mountfield QC, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge, who ordered a stay pending related complaints and appeals. This judgment lifted that stay and gave directions for the renewed permission hearing.