AC-2025-LON-000559 - [2025] EWHC 1984 (Admin)

This is the judgment of the court after a ‘rolled-up’ hearing of the Claimants’ application for permission to apply for judicial review of a ‘decision’ of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (‘the IPT’), and, if permission is granted, of their application for judicial review. For convenience, we will refer to the subject of this challenge as ‘the Decision’.

The Claimants brought proceedings in the Administrative Court and in the IPT challenging search warrants and surveillance. Those proceedings led to the quashing of search warrants and an order for the destruction of the products of unlawful surveillance. Later, on 7 June 2019, they applied for judicial review of a decision of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (‘HMRC’). We will refer to that litigation as ‘the claim’. In the course of the claim, Swift J (“the Judge”) ordered the parties to ask the IPT some questions. The Decision contains the IPT’s answers to those questions.

On this application the claimants were represented by Ms Kilroy KC and Mr Casella. The IPT did not appear and was not represented. HMRC are the Interested Party. HMRC resist the application for judicial review. HMRC were represented by Mr Fletcher. We thank counsel for their helpful skeleton arguments and for their informative oral submissions.

At the start of the hearing we granted the Claimants’ application that the hearing and our judgment should be given in private. HMRC did not oppose that application.

The Claimant’s application for judicial review of the Decision raises issues of general significance about the relationship between the privacy protections granted by the IPT in proceedings which have ended, and the principle of open justice which applies in the Administrative Court, but which may be affected by those privacy protections. We would therefore give the Claimants permission to apply for judicial review.

We would nevertheless dismiss the application for judicial review of the Decision for two linked reasons. First, we do not consider that the effect of the Decision is such as to make it amenable to judicial review. Second, on the facts of this case, even if the Decision is amenable to judicial review, it would not be a good use of the court’s resources to make judicial review available in this case. The best forum for litigating these issues is the Administrative Court, which is the court which has jurisdiction over the claim and is poised (if that is the right word) to decide the issues which are the subject of this claim.