AC-2024-LDS-000019 - [2025] EWHC 2940 (Admin)

Having considered the competing submissions I am satisfied that this judicial review claim should not proceed in the Administrative Court for the following reasons.

First, the claim is entirely academic. The issues around whether or not it was lawful to prevent the Claimant from attending the AGM on 11 March 2024 are entirely historic. He has now been expelled from the University and so there is no prospect of any judgment in relation to what happened on 11 March 2024 being of any practical assistance to him in the future. He suggested to me in oral submissions that there have been similar difficulties between the University and other students since 11 March 2024 but none of them are Claimants in this litigation and I have no details of the allegations to which the Claimant alluded.

Second, it is clear that the background to the imposition of the interim sanctions on the Claimant preventing him from attending the AGM is heavily contested as between the Claimants and the Union. While there is some evidence before this court as to the basis on which the University security staff became involved in preventing the Claimant from attending the AGM, the Claimant indicated in oral submissions that matters are more complicated than they would first appear because the University was aware of the background of difficulties between the Claimant and the Union. Judicial review is not the appropriate forum for resolution of factual issues of this kind.

Third, a private law claim in the County Court is the appropriate alternative remedy for the Claimant to pursue for a range of reasons. It is the proper way to address the historic wrong to which the Claimant contends he has been subjected. It is the appropriate forum for resolving factual disputes of the kind I have indicated. If the Claimant succeeds, he may be awarded the damages which he seeks. The County Court could through its judgment declare that his rights under Articles 10 and 11 were breached.

Although the Claimant contended that the County Court was not an appropriate alternative remedy because it could not consider the arguments under the Education Act 1994, section 22(1), I do not see why that is the case.

If the Claimant satisfies the County Court, as he may well do, that the University’s actions amounted to an interference with his right to freedom of expression under Article 10(1), the court will need to go on to consider whether that interference was justified under Article 10(2).

This will require consideration of whether the restrictions placed on the Claimant by the University were “prescribed by law” and “necessary in a democratic society” for one of the stated aims in Article 10(2). These include, as may be relied on by the University here, “public safety”, “the prevention of disorder or crime” and “the protection of the reputation or rights of others”.

If the Claimant proves an interference with his rights to freedom of assembly and association under Article 11(1), a similar exercise with respect to Article 11 (2) would be necessary.

The University’s case is likely to be that the requirements of Articles 10(2) and 11(2) were met because of the security concerns raised with the University by the Union, on which it was entitled to rely and to which it was required to respond in the exercise of its duty of care to students and staff.

However, as far as I understand it, the Claimant wishes to argue that the University’s actions did not meet these requirements because it failed to comply with its duties under section 22(1) to ensure that the Union was operating in a fair and democratic manner. This is, I understand, on the basis that the University breached the section 22(1) duty by failing to see the request for assistance in the context of its knowledge of the prior conflict between the Claimants and the Union and/or failing to interrogate the information provided to it by the Union about his conduct and/or failing to check that the interim sanctions had been properly imposed. This would, on his case, show that the Union was not operating in a fair and democratic manner towards him. I should add that this understanding has emerged during the oral submissions, and has not been particularised in his documentation before this court or the County Court. The documentation provided in this claim generally suffers from the defect that it focusses in detail on the actions of the Union rather than on the actions of the University who are the only Defendant.

I observe that the Particulars of Claim in the County Court do not, at least yet, address section 22. However, if the Claimant does wish to rely on it as part and parcel of his claims under Articles 10 and 11, or indeed as some kind of free-standing claim under section 22, I see no reason why the County Court cannot determine that issue.

For these reasons I have decided that insofar as the Claimant’s claim for judicial review relies on Articles 10 and 11 under Ground 1, these issues should be ventilated in the County Court.

Mr Greatorex has urged me to give an indication of the arguability of the Claimant’s Article 10 and 11 claims given the time devoted to them in these proceedings and the extensive costs incurred by the University to date, in part, because of the Claimant’s conduct in filing voluminous submissions and evidence without permission.

While I have considerable sympathy with the position the Claimant’s conduct of this claim has placed the University in, I do not consider it appropriate to give the indication sought. In my judgement there is force in the Claimant’s submission that if there exists an alternative remedy, that should be permitted to proceed without interference by this court. Further I am not persuaded that the merits of the Claimant’s Article 10 and 11 claims are as straightforward or as poor as the University contend, not least due to the factual issues to which I have alluded and the lack of detailed argument before me about the proper scope of section 22.

Ground 2 relies on a failure by the Defendant to take relevant matters into consideration. This appears to me to be again part and parcel of the arguments around Articles 10(2), 11(2) and section 22 and is therefore properly to be determined by the County Court not this court.

I therefore refuse permission on Grounds 1 and 2 on the basis that there exists, and is currently being pursued, an appropriate alternative remedy for the Claimant.

I am, however, persuaded that the Claimant’s Ground 3 contending that the University acted irrationally is not arguable for the reasons given by his HHJ Saffman. Given the information provided to the University to the effect that the Claimant was not permitted to attend the AGM there is no realistic prospect of a finding that refusing access to the AGM was irrational, given the high public law threshold that applies to that test. I therefore refuse permission on ground 3.

For completeness, I would not have refused permission on the basis of the Senior Courts Act 1981, section 31. At a high level, the Claimant’s case is that the conduct complained of is that the University unlawfully refused him access to the AGM. If that had not occurred, the outcome would have been different as he would have been permitted to enter. Insofar as the Claimant’s case relies on the failure by the University’s security staff to take into account particular information, there is no direct evidence before me, only submissions, as to what the outcome would have been.

Permission is nevertheless refused on all three grounds for the reasons I have given.