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

The IPT gave the parties an opportunity to make submissions on its jurisdiction to answer the questions asked by the Judge. It recorded those submissions in paragraphs 8-9 of the Ruling. It accepted that its jurisdiction was entirely statutory and that it has no inherent jurisdiction. It quoted paragraph 41 of the judgment of the Supreme Court in Dring v Cape Intermediate Holdings Limited [2019] UKSC 38; [2019] AC 629 and referred to paragraphs 42-50. The IPT was not yet functus officio, to the extent that its orders have continuing effect. It therefore had jurisdiction to consider whether its privacy orders should continue or be modified. The principle of open justice required the IPT to keep such orders under review.

If it had that jurisdiction, then it also had jurisdiction to ‘clarify the status’ of judgments and orders which had been made by the IPT, and of other materials which had been put before it, ‘particularly in response to a request from another court or tribunal’. There was a public interest in its having such a jurisdiction. If it did not, there was a danger that the protections conferred by the IPT’s rules would be diluted (paragraph 15).

The IPT added that it was ‘difficult properly to distinguish questions about the effect of [the IPT’s] existing orders from questions about whether those orders should be modified or discharged’. The IPT considered that it should have a further oral hearing, in fairness to the Claimants (paragraph 16).