Public Law and Judicial Review

We are renowned for our public law expertise, with members regularly appearing in high profile cases of strategic importance before all courts. This includes judicial review, governmental and other inquiries, tribunal proceedings, disciplinary proceedings involving public bodies and statutory appeal work.

Members combine in-depth knowledge of local and central government with expertise across a broad range of areas, including planning and environment, housing, property, licensing, health and social care, Court of Protection, , human rights, and data protection.

We also advise on strategic issues such as general power of competence, local government finance, councillors’ conduct, Equality Act duties, land transactions, highways, and powers of entry.

The legal directories note that we can “provide barristers with the range of skills required to handle the diverse and often complex nature of instructions“. We provide commercially focused advice to both private sector parties bringing public law challenges and public sector bodies seeking to defend their acts and decisions. We act for more than 300 local authorities across England and Wales as well as numerous companies and individuals.

We also have 12 junior barristers on the Attorney General Panel’s of Counsel acting frequently for central government departments in a wide variety of disputes.

The team is a leading authority on local government law and recently published Cornerstone on Councillors’ Conduct and Standards in Public Life (2^nd Ed), the definitive guide to the standards that govern the conduct of those elected to Local Government in England and Wales.

Supreme Court cases include:

• R (Finch & Weald Action Group) v Surrey County Council & Horse Hill Developments Ltd [2024] UKSC 20, on appeal from [2022] EWCA Civ 187: the first climate-based challenge to a grant of permission for commercial oil production which establishes the correct approach to “remote” planning impacts, such as the greenhouse gas emissions from burning the oil extracted by the grant of planning permission.
• R (Worcestershire County Council) v Secretary of State for Health and Social Care [2023] UKSC 31: The Supreme Court allowed Worcestershire’s appeal and, in doing so, provided much-needed clarity as to the operation of s.117 of the Mental Health Act 1983.
• R (Imam) v Croydon London Borough of Croydon (Appellant) [2023] UKSC 45: The court considered to what extent is an absence of resources relevant when a court is considering whether to grant an order compelling compliance with a statutory duty.
• Cherry and Others v The Advocate General and Miller v the Prime Minister [2019] UKSC 41: The court found that the Prime Minister’s decision to prorogue parliament was unlawful and, consequently, null and void. This article aims to identify some of the immediate constitutional and political impacts of that decision.

Our team includes adjudicators, inspectors, investigators, Boundaries Commissioners and officers and elected members of local bodies.

Annual Public Law Conference

As well as providing regular content on topical issues, we run an annual public law conference. At Public Law in 2024: Practical Trends and Insights, held in July 2024, we hosted a packed schedule of talks taking on topics including duty of candour, disclosure, remedies, practical tips for bringing and defending claims, consultation, remedies, costs, plus a comprehensive case law update, all delivered by Cornerstone’s leading public law team.

We were delighted to be joined by our keynote speaker Lady Arden, former justice of the UK Supreme Court.

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