Judicial Review Reform in Ireland?

This week the Irish government published heads of legislation that would significantly reform judicial review of administrative action. The general scheme of the Civil Reform Bill 2025 can be accessed here. Some, but by no means all, of these suggestions were made in a report on civil justice reform several years ago (see here).

Some of the proposed reforms are entirely sensible and would bring Ireland into line with comparable jurisdictions – the replacement of certiorari, mandamus and prohibition with quashing, mandatory and prohibiting orders respectively (Head 8(9)). Quo warranto would, also, be no more (Head 8(10)) and habeas corpus would meet the same fate (Head 14).

But others are radical.

First, consider the circumstances in which a remedy can be granted on judicial review (Head 8(5)(a)):

(i) the respondent has acted unlawfully,
(ii) the applicant has suffered harm or prejudice,
(iii) any error of law, or procedural error, was material to the decision,
(iv) the interests of justice, taking into account the interests of the applicant
and the public interest, require such a remedy to be granted, and
(v) the granting of the remedy provides a significant benefit to the applicant.

(i) to (iii) reflect the current state of the law. But (iv) and (v) would impose significant limits on judicial review remedies (depending, of course, on how “public interest” and “significant benefit” are defined. Whether this would be an adequate remedy for the purposes of EU law (relevant to a broad swath of contemporary Irish public administration) or the Irish Constitution is open to serious question.

Second, a wide range of judicial review proceedings would henceforth be commenced in the Circuit Court, which is an inferior court: immigration proceedings and any other such proceedings as specified by regulation (Head 9(2)). Claims can be commenced in the High Court only in exceptional circumstances (Head (9)(4)).

This would be a remarkable change: as an inferior court, the Circuit Court has no supervisory jurisdiction over administrative decision-makers, nor have its judges been selected on the basis of their expertise in judicial review. Moreover, the High Court is a superior court and its supervisory jurisdiction has constitutional status — question whether the possibility of invoking the High Court’s supervisory jurisdiction in a suitably exceptional case satisfies the requirements of the Constitution. In addition, appeals to the Court of Appeal (from the Circuit Court or the High Court) would only lie where a question of “exceptional public importance” is certified and an appeal is desirable in the public interest (Head 12(2)).

Third, whilst Head 10 codifies the current requirements for seeking leave, Head 11(1) sets out a variety of other considerations to be taken into account in determining whether the application should be entertained at all:

(a) the application is in accordance with the provisions set out in Head 10,
(b) there are arguable grounds for contending:
(i) in the case of a quashing order, that the impugned decision is invalid or
otherwise ought to be quashed,
(ii) in the case of remedies other than a quashing order, that such remedies
should be granted,
(iii) the granting of the remedy would provide a significant benefit to the
applicant.
(c) the claim has a reasonable prospect of success, and
(d) the issue is one appropriate for the court and not de minimis in nature.

The “conduct” of the parties would also be relevant (Head 11(2)).

Even at the leave stage, then, the “significant benefit” standard would apply. This could amount to an imposing barrier between the individual and the supervisory jurisdiction of the courts. As for the “de minimis” consideration, this is already part of the law, but has been interpreted extremely narrowly (notwithstanding attempts by respondent counsel to expand it).

Again, much would depend on the interpretation of these provisions, but the question of effective remedy looms very large indeed.

A few years ago, the Johnson government in the United Kingdom sought to reform the law of judicial review. In the end, the legislative changes made were quite limited. These Irish reforms seem to me to be much closer to what the Johnson government would have liked to have seen. True, Ireland is facing what many would term a ‘judicial review crisis’ given the current scope and scale of judicial review. These reforms raise, however, significant questions of constitutional propriety and will have to be carefully assessed.

This content has been updated on January 9, 2026 at 12:50.