Judicial review time limits are strict, are sometimes much shorter than three months, and can run from an earlier date than you expect. The courts can refuse late applications even within the stated period if you have not acted promptly. Nothing on this page calculates your deadline. If you believe a decision affecting you may be unlawful, contact a solicitor immediately.
Step 1: Assessment — Fast
Everything begins with four questions answered in days, not weeks: Which time limit applies (three months general; eight weeks in much of planning; 28 days in much of immigration)? Must an appeal be used first? Which grounds are genuinely arguable — powers, procedures, reasons, rationality, expectation? And what remedy actually helps — because quashing a refusal restarts the process; it does not grant the application. Honest answers here save clients from unwinnable, expensive proceedings.
Step 2: The Pre-Action Letter
A formal letter to the decision-maker: the decision, the unlawfulness alleged, the remedy sought, a deadline to respond. It is good practice, it protects your costs position — and it wins cases outright, because public bodies concede challenges they will lose rather than fund them. The letter is drafted as if the pleadings will follow, because sometimes they must, within the same unforgiving limit. Full guide: the pre-action letter.
Step 3: Leave
The application for permission: statement of grounds, verifying affidavit, counsel moving ex parte before the High Court. The threshold is an arguable case (substantial grounds in 2000-Act planning); the grounds pleaded now define the case permanently, so they are drafted with care under deadline. Under the 2024 planning regime, leave is abolished and weak cases are filtered by respondent strike-out instead — different door, same discipline. See the leave stage explained.
Step 4: Pleadings to Hearing
Leave granted, the respondent is served and delivers a statement of opposition with affidavits; exchanges follow; the case is managed in the list toward hearing. Judicial review runs on affidavit — cross-examination is exceptional — so the documents are the battlefield. Stays and interim injunctions hold the position where the subject-matter would otherwise be destroyed by delay. Duration varies by list and urgency: months as a rule, days where genuine emergency demands. Honest expectations: how long it takes.
Step 5: Judgment, Remedy, Costs
The court grants or refuses relief: certiorari, mandamus, prohibition, declarations, injunctions — usually remitting a quashed decision for lawful re-determination. Costs generally follow the event, subject to the special environmental rules and the new planning costs framework. The full remedies picture: remedies explained; the money picture: costs in judicial review.
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