Civil-law bill includes judicial-review overhaul
The Government has published a draft bill on civil-law reform that includes an overhaul of the judicial-review process.
The bill also proposes new rules for the discovery process and increases in the monetary limits on the jurisdiction of the Circuit and District Courts.
Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan said that the General Scheme of the Civil Reform Bill 2025 delivered on “the vast majority” of the recommendations in the 2020 Kelly Report on the administration of civil justice and, in some case, expanded on them.
Last year, a Government report on competitiveness described overall progress in implementing the review’s recommendations as “slow” and called for an acceleration of the pace of reform.
‘Greater transparency’
“We can no longer delay on reform of the judicial-review system,” the minister stated, adding that the bill’s proposals on the issue would result in greater transparency and a more streamlined process.
The Department of Justice says that the bill puts judicial review on a statutory basis, with a public-interest test at the centre of the process.
“Key reforms will ensure the system cannot be misused on purely technical grounds, that costs are reduced where possible, and litigants have sufficient standing to properly challenge decisions,” the minister said.
The bill sets out that a remedy under judicial review may be granted only where the following conditions are met:
- The respondent has acted unlawfully,
- The applicant has suffered harm or prejudice,
- Any error of law, or procedural error, was material to the decision,
- The interests of justice require such a remedy to be granted, taking into account both the interests of the applicant and the public interest, and
- The granting of the remedy leaves the applicant in a significantly better position.
'Sufficient interest'
The bill also states that an application for leave to apply for judicial review may only be sought “by a person directly affected by the act which is the subject of the application and who has a sufficient interest in the matter”.
“Through the forthcoming legislation, I will make clear that judicial review is a process whereby someone who has suffered harm or prejudice because of an unlawful action of a public body may seek a remedy from the courts,” Minister O’Callaghan stated.
“However, any remedy will consider the public interest as well as the interests of the applicant,” he added.
Documents restricted
The bill also aims to address a finding in the Kelly Report that economically stronger parties frequently weaponised the current discovery regime to effectively impede the less well-resourced party in court proceedings.
Under the proposals, there would be a new system for ‘production of documents’.
Production would be restricted to documents that were “relevant and material” to the outcome of the proceedings, reasonably likely to be relied on at trial, and where production of those documents was necessary for the administration of justice.
Monetary thresholds raised
The bill will increase the monetary jurisdiction of the District Court from €15,000 to €20,000 and that of the Circuit Court (including in relation to personal-injury actions) from €75,000 to €100,000.
The changes are aimed at reducing legal costs by allowing more non-complex cases to be heard in lower courts.
Other measures included in the bill cover the creation of case-conduct principles, the extension of pre-action protocols beyond clinical-negligence proceedings, and limits on the term of a lis pendens – a notice indicating that a property is the subject of litigation.
The bill also seeks to give effect to recommendations made in a 2024 report on sheriffs – including a requirement for sheriffs to make a statutory declaration before the High Court undertaking always to act fairly and impartially in performing their functions and exercising their powers.