The High Court has struck out a judicial review challenge to a planning permission after the applicants and other parties agreed to end the proceedings. It also ruled that it would not refer questions about the dispute to the Court of Justice of the European Union.
In a judgment delivered electronically on 9 October 2020, Mr Justice Garrett Simons explained his reasons for an order already made on 25 August. The order struck out the proceedings in their entirety, with no order as to costs.
The court had initially planned to seek guidance from the EU court on whether it could be required to rule on the validity of the planning permission even though the applicants wanted to withdraw their case. That proposed reference followed an April 2020 judgment. The Attorney General was later joined to the High Court proceedings, with the consent of all parties, and made submissions on whether the court had jurisdiction to continue when no party wanted an issue resolved.
The Attorney General argued that the court could not determine a case without a live dispute, subject to limited exceptions. The judge accepted that submission. He said the parties’ agreement to strike out the proceedings meant there was no remaining issue for the court to decide, and that EU law did not give the court jurisdiction it lacked under domestic constitutional law.
The judge said his April judgment had mistakenly treated the question as one of discretion rather than jurisdiction. Where all parties agree to withdraw, the court’s role is generally confined to the terms of withdrawal, such as costs. He noted that exceptional circumstances involving fraud or collusion might require the court to retain control of proceedings, but said nothing of that kind arose in this case.
The court therefore concluded that the basis for the proposed EU court reference had fallen away. No reference was made, and the planning permission’s validity was not determined in this judgment.