In the Courts - Energy; Judicial review
January 2009
Charities fail in legal challenge
When Friends of the Earth and Help the Aged tried to obtain a judicial review of the alleged continuing failure of two secretaries of state to perform their duties under the Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act 2000 s 2(5) and s 2(6), it did not succeed.
The Act requires: The Secretary of State to publish and implement a strategy for reducing fuel poverty, to require the setting of targets for the implementation of that strategy; and for connected purposes. Fuel poverty is defined in the Act as an individual living on a lower income in a home which cannot be kept warm at reasonable cost.
The High Court took the view that while there was a statutory duty to make every effort to implement the strategy, the Government s published strategy is a policy document. The judge explained I do not consider that is open to the court to review the policy decisions of the Defendants as to the way they should go about the implementation of the Strategy and went on to clarify that a challenge to policy making and fund allocation should not be confused with a failure to perform a statutory duty.
Had the application been successful, it would have been the first time a court would have made an order requiring a public body to do more than what it is already doing. The charities have appealed the ruling.
This was something of a setback for charities looking to the courts to further campaign objectives and was compounded by the Christian Legal Centre s failure to obtain a judicial review of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority s decision to grant research licences which involves creating animal human hybrids.
There are no comments on this article. Be the first to comment.