FLAC’s judicial-review concerns remain
FLAC (Free Legal Advice Centres), which promotes access to justice, says that it still has “significant concerns” about proposals for civil-law reform, despite welcoming recent engagement on the issue with the Department of Justice.
FLAC has concerns that the proposals in the General Scheme of the Civil Reform Bill 2025 include what it describes as “a radical curtailment” of access to judicial review.
It believes that the plans are likely to have a disproportionately negative impact on people that it represents in cases involving public services such as social housing, emergency accommodation, additional educational supports, and access to basic social-welfare payments.
Clarifications
FLAC said that department officials had provided it with details of a number of clarifications and proposed changes to the bill.
The organisation said that, if implemented, these could address some of its concerns. It added, however, that these changes were “subject to drafting and Government approval”.
According to FLAC, the department has said that it will set the standard for getting permission to take a judicial review cases at an ‘arguable-grounds’ threshold and that it is reviewing the inclusion of language in the bill that would require cases to have a ‘reasonable prospect of success’.
FLAC is concerned that requiring people to show that their case has a ‘reasonable prospect of success’ would effectively block public-interest cases that raise complex or new legal issues which have not been considered before by the courts, citing the recent O’Meara judicial-review case.
‘Plenary actions’
The department has also told FLAC that it is intended to include language in the bill that would address concerns about its provisions blocking people from taking constitutional cases as ‘plenary actions’.
The department also intends to amend the language used in the proposed legislation about ‘alternate remedies’, to ensure that people without an effective and meaningful alternate remedy are not blocked from taking a case.
The new discovery regime introduced in the bill will require the production of documents only after a defence has been delivered in a case, rather than at the very outset as had been proposed in the General Scheme.
FLAC has been told that the department expects to publish the bill in the third quarter of 2026 and that it intends to hold a ‘symposium’ about the legislation “before the summer”.
Time limit
FLAC chief executive Eilis Barry welcomed the engagement with the department but pointed to “serious concerns” that remained.
“For example, we do not see any justification for its proposed reduction of the already very restrictive 12-week time limit for taking a case to eight weeks.
“If implemented, this restrictive time limit will put access to judicial review out of reach for people who don’t have the resources to pay for and access immediate legal assistance,” she stated.
“Our concerns also remain about proposals to limit the court’s discretion to grant judicial review, to limit the availability of appeals in judicial-review cases, or to restrict when even successful applicants may be awarded their costs,” Barry stated.