Judicial Review is filed at The Royal Courts of Justice

On Thursday 24th April, the morning started with more conversations on the phone with Dave Pettener and Paul Pickering from the Stop The Incinerator campaign, as well as Sue Willman at Deighton Pierce Glynn. "Yes a campaign should file the papers in person and see it as a photo opportunity," she said.

I'd had a cough and cold for a few days - and felt I needed some rest, but more importantly I needed to catch up with paid work. So, I quickly rearranged my day, and in the afternoon I set off for the Royal Courts of Justice. Sue explained that it was 10 minutes walk from Charing Cross. I google imaged the building because the plan was to meet Katie, a clerk at Deighton Pierce Glynn, described by Sue as being "early 20s about 5 foot 8, black shoulder length hair", who would have the files that were to be submitted.

Unusually for me I was early (!!), and whilst I had and idea what the Royal Courts of Justice looked like, I'd been on many marches that passed by the building, I still wasn't properly prepared for the magnificence of the building. The importance of the moment, caught up with the history and tradition of the High Court created an unusual mixture of excitement and trepidation.

Royal Courts of Justice on The Strand

Katie arrived with the papers at 15:50pm. We had 40 minutes to file the judicial review. It seemed like ample time, but Katie knew we didn't have long because we first had to first pay the £60 fee at the cashiers office before actual filing the judicial review. We managed to pose for this photo in between paying the fee and submitting the files because at one point the easiest route seemed to be: to go back out and come back in.

Katie and I with the case containing the court bundle a la chancellor on budget day

The files that were submitted, known as the permission bundle, were in big blue lever arch files. The queue to to the Administrative Court was fairly lengthy. We just managed to get in before the doors were closed behind us at 4:30pm. As we submitted the file at the counter, the officer behind the window pointed out that the lever mechanism on one of the files was faulty. Unbelievably, she actually said she couldn't accept the file in  this condition. WOW! My jaw dropped! Katie quickly took back the the file and corrected the mechanism. Thankfully, it was accepted.

The Permission Bundle

After a little while we were issued with a Judical Review claim form with the seal confirming receipt. Once that was in our hands we could relax. I had a chance to properly look around on the way out.
 

Main Hall

However, as we were leaving the building, I noticed my wallet was missing. After ten frantic minutes of emptying all my pockets and holdall on the edge of the main hall, I went to see security. They confirmed it had been found in the airport style security area. Upon entering the building the second time (in a hurry), as required, I had emptied all my pockets and placed my possessions in a large tray that went along the conveyor belt through the x-ray machine. Somehow my wallet fell out of the tray and went down the rollers at the end of the conveyor belt. Thankfully, one of the security officers noticed it.

So the picture of me outside the Royal Courts of me beaming, is partly because I had not lost my wallet!!

With the JR claim form

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Tags croydon, greenparty