Michael Fordham (3)

THE JR HANDBOOK HAS BECOME A WELL-PRUNED INSTITUTION FOR THOSE WHO PRACTISE PUBLIC LAW

Yes, the fifth edition of the ‘JR Handbook’ is now out and it lives up to all our expectations. When I bought the first edition, I didn’t realise that Michael Fordham had not done a judicial review case before he had written it, and that is probably just as well as he came to the subject with a different perspective which we have all benefited from.

The fifth edition has been extensively pruned and remains the clearest statement on JR matters for all concerned in such proceedings. An added benefit now is that the “Case Synopses” are available at the ‘dot com’ version of the handbook by keying in the title- this is welcome with the continued growth of case law which would otherwise make the work unmanageable for any handbook of this nature.

As a result, there is no messing about with this handbook! Fordham goes straight to the main, first question describing basic steps in what he refers to as “P1” for the starting chapter- great for the lay client as a starter, although I expect some readers get a bit confused by the layout of this book initially.

However, once the handbook is used, one gets used to the format quickly. There are four sections covering (A) the nature of judicial review (keys to understanding what the Court is doing); (B) parameters of judicial review (further dominant themes shaping the law and practice); (C) grounds for judicial review (public law wrongs justifying the Court’s intervention); and (D) materials (key sources of rules and procedure).

We have now entered the post Bingham era and, as Fordham says, the new edition makes it an opportune time to take stock of the subject. Lord Woolf’s foreword rightly indicates that the growth of the handbook’s contents, whilst matching the growth of judicial review, could pose a danger that this work might no longer be so convenient to use. But, as Lord Woolf comments, Fordham is no novice now and is a distinguished leader in this field at the Bar, and he has come up with the necessary pruning to allow the contents to remain un-smothered.

The subject matter is treated in sufficient depth throughout and it retains the best of the past editions, including massive case law which all of us as users - the practitioners, the judges, the academics, and the lay clients – allows the ability to keep abreast of change, even with the heavy human rights law task which could have let Fordham’s standards slip a bit ten years ago … but they haven’t, as he is a master of all that he surveys in this area.

Whilst I was firstly bemused by the label of Lord Bingham’s immense and lasting contributions to JR with his rulings and reasoning which are ‘overflowing with pithy insights’ guiding practitioners and judges for decades to come, I welcome the phrase “Binghamised public law” although I don’t know whether his lordship will agree with this tag!

On reflection, I do!

Michael Fordham has been both ‘working’ and ‘doing his book’ at the same time, and as he says, it is a distinction without a difference for us as the users. And, thankfully, he has written the best statement of principle to extract, classify and illustrate cases which we have for issues of judicial review where the emotions run high between the public and the state: this handbook has now matured to become the institution it is today although I had a feeling it would when I used the first edition fourteen years ago for drafting, and I haven’t changed my view of the help this work gives me: it is my new best JR friend.… (más)