Difference between Judicial Review and Appeals Process?

Liverpool4cup

Hey whats the main difference between the two?

Is it that a judicial review is more for public bodies and seeing how the decision was made while an appeals process is more about more private matters and the the decision itself.

Also Judicial review is high court and appeals in court of appeals?

Cheers guys

Victor

If I have it right.

Appeals are specifically a challenge to a decision of a court or a quasi-judicial body - I think PRTB decisions can be appealed to court. The usual criteria for allowing an appeal to be lodged is either a challenge on a point of law or that the decision is fundamentally flawed / absurd, e.g. the lower court has an error in the face of it.

Judicial review is the review by a judge, not of a judge. It tends to be of a decision by a non-judicial body, e.g. if a council decided it wasn't going to fulfill a statutory obligation.

hullaballoo

No, that isn't quite it but I couldn't be bothered using my own words so I found this on Google: http://www.courtroomadvice.co.uk/judicial-review.html

Dandelion6

To take an example, say you apply for disability allowance. You're refused because the decision maker doesn't believe your disability prevents you from working. You appeal to the Social Welfare Appeals Office. They will consider all the evidence and decide whether they believe your disability prevents you from working. If not, they uphold the initial refusal; if so, they reverse it and grant you disability allowance.

You have no further appeals, so at this point you have two options. You can either try to get better evidence and reapply, or, you can lodge a judicial review. You cannot introduce new evidence at the judicial review; you can only point to the evidence that was before the SWAO, and argue that its decision was legally flawed in light of that evidence. This could be due to an error of fact (the decision indicates they misread your medical report) or an error of law (they applied the wrong test to decide that you weren't entitled). But if there were no errors of fact or law in the decision, you're basically out of luck. The High Court judge will not just look at the evidence and substitute his own judgment, unless he finds that you are so clearly unable to work that no rational decision maker could have refused you. And even if he finds in your favour, it doesn't mean you get disability allowance. It means the refusal is quashed, and your application gets sent back to SWAO (usually to a new appeals officer) to reconsider it.

Hope that helps.

jacknife

There is also time limits for each a judicial review is 3 months and an appeal from district to circuit court is 2 weeks.