England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT LIST
(MR JUSTICE LIGHTMAN)

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London, WC2 Tuesday, 8 October 2002

Tuesday, 8 October 2002

1. LORD JUSTICE LAWS: This is an application for permission to appeal a decision of Lightman J given in the Administrative Court on 18 March 2002 when he refused Dr Uruakpa and his wife, Dr Uloma Uruakpa, permission to seek judicial review of the British Council's decision not to renew their sponsorship of Dr Uruakpa. Dr Uruakpa has not attended this court today to prosecute his application for permission. I propose to dismiss it and will give short reasons.
2. Lightman J crisply explained the background to the case. Dr Uruakpa is a medical doctor from a foreign country. It appears that doctors from overseas who do not have the necessary qualifications to be granted registration by the General Medical Council may apply for limited registration. In order to obtain such registration the doctor must either pass a particular test of professional knowledge or be granted exemption from what is called the PLAB test by virtue of being sponsored by any one of a number of bodies, including the British Council. What happened here was that the British Council offered sponsorship to Dr Uruakpa in February 1997, but that was later withdrawn. That is what has generated the application for judicial review.
3. The judge below identified three issues in the case:

"... the first is whether the British Council's decision to withdraw its sponsorship of Dr Uruakpa is a matter of private law and accordingly not amenable to judicial review; the second is whether the claimant's failure to issue the proceedings promptly bars this application; and the third is whether the British Council's decision was, in any event, a lawful one."

4. The judge held against the applicant on all three of these issues. I have of course considered his judgment carefully. It seems to me that it is not really necessary to enter into any final view as to whether the British Council are in principle amenable to judicial review, because I have concluded that it is beyond argument that the decision arrived at by the British Council was fair and reasonable in any event, and would survive any judicial review challenge if that were available. Essentially, the decision is given in a "reasons" letter of 4 January 2001. That letter shows that careful consideration had been given to the matter, nothing irrelevant was taken into account, the letter is balanced, moderate and well-reasoned; and in my judgment there is simply no prospect of any challenge to the basis of the British Council's decision having the remotest possibility of success. Various complaints are made by the applicant including one of bad faith by the British Council; that is simply abusive. There is another suggestion that the applicant was denied any right to representation; the documents show that was plainly untrue. There is an Article 6 complaint; there is nothing in that. This application should never have been brought and is dismissed.
(Application dismissed; no order for costs).