Legal Interventions

The Corner House has used several types of legal intervention to ensure that public government bodies and corporations do not act above or outside the law and can be held accountable for their actions.

We often work with solicitors Leigh Day & Co when writing to ask for information about government policies and practices.
We have taken several judicial reviews -- a type of court proceeding in which a judge reviews the lawfulness of a decision or action made by a public body. The judicial review does not challenge the rights or wrongs of a decision, but rather the way in which a decision has been made, and whether correct and legal procedures were followed in making the decision. The court does not state what it thinks is the correct decision. If a court rules that a decision was made unlawfully, the public body has to make the decision again -- and may well make the same decision again but has to do so in a lawful way.
An individual or an organisation can request a judicial review, although they usually have to show some involvement or history or standing on the issue involved.
The administrative courts provide guidance on applying for judicial review.
 
The Corner House has participated in the following judicial review processes:

• the decision by the UK Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD) to weaken in November 2004 its rules aimed at reducing corruption;
• the decision by the Director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in December 2006 to terminate the SFO investigation into alleged bribery and false accounting by BAE Systems in relation to the Al Yamamah deals with Saudi Arabia.(See BAE-Saudi Arabia-corruption judicial review)
• ECGD support for the Sakhalin II oil and gas fields; and
• the decision by the Director of the Serious Fraud Office in February 2010 to make a plea bargain settlement with BAE Systems to bring its corruption investigations to a close.