Administrative Court gives guidance on handling e-filing issues

Fordham J has given some guidance on handling issues relating to the e-filing of judicial review applications in the Administrative Court, stating that this may be something the Administrative Court User Group wishes to consider, or further online guidance provided. The case is R (BLV) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWHC 1475 (Admin) and the problems experienced by the solicitors in e-filing the claim meant that the judicial review was formally issued after the three month deadline, although the Home Office sensibly did not take a delay point here.

Background

DPG sought to challenge a decision dated 6 November 2024 and sent a pre action letter on 19 December 2024. The Home Office responded on 15 January 2025 and legal aid was granted on 23 January 2025.

On 6 February 2025 DPG filed the judicial review electronically and received an automated email notification as evidence of this. On 11 and 12 February 2025 DPG emailed the court, chasing for the sealed claim form so that they could serve the claim on the defendant. On 12 February 2025 the court notified them that the claim had been rejected because “You have not listed the defendant, all fields within Participant Information must be entered” and the individual solicitor had been named instead of the firm under legal representation.

The same day, DPG re-filed the claim and emailed the court with apologies and explained that previous claim forms completed the same way had previously been accepted. DPG asked that the application still be noted as filed on 6 February 2025, the last day of the three month deadline for the judicial review. No automatic acknowledgment of the filing was received.

On 14 February 2025 DPG again emailed the court asking for the sealed claim form. The court replied on 17 February 2025 advising that it could take 7 to 14 days to process. On 25 February 2025 DPG noticed that the permission bundle was showing in the drafts folder and they re-filed the papers again. This time an automatic acknowledgment was received.

The court recorded the date the claim had been filed as 25 February 2025 and the claim was formally issued (stamped by the court) on 5 March 2025. The claim was served on the Home Secretary on 12 March 2025.

DPG continued to ask the court to record the filing date as 6 February 2025 and eventually received a response that this was not possible. DPG also asked where in the civil procedure rules was the obligation to provide the information identified in the email rejection. The court responded as follows:

The guidance for our issues department is that if the e-filing application has not been completed then they are to reject the claim. In this instance the defendant and Legal representation details were not entered into the system. As I’m sure you can appreciate we have a large number of cases being lodged through e-filing and this will obviously increase considerably when the system becomes mandatory. If issue staff have to input all the missing details on every case that this has happened it will have a huge impact on our resources…

Court guidance on what to do when this happens

There were three issues that DPG asked the court to give guidance on:

What “details of a new case” is a judicial review claimant required to “enter” online (CPR PD51O §2.3(c))? Can difficulties with the correct online “details” be a basis for a court order (CPR PD51O §5.3(2) and CPR 3.10(b)) back-dating the court-recorded “filing” date of the new judicial review claim? And should communications with the Court about possible back-dating be copied to the other parties?

On the first question, and relating to the need to enter the defendant details in the relevant section, the court acknowledged the “potential for confusion regarding mandatory fields and asterisks” but pointed to HMCTS’ guidance on e-filing, specifically the ten steps set out at “Party information” and step 9 in particular which states that each of the relevant steps needs to be carried out for each party to the claim.

On the point of whether the details of the individual solicitor or the firm are required, again the court acknowledged that there was potential for confusion and stated “I have not been able to find anything which spells out that the name of the firm, and not just the individual solicitor, is among the required “details of the new case”.”

The second question was whether there was a need for an order to back-date the filing of the claim. Fordham J said that he “can see the force in the submission about the availability of this bespoke power, to remedy a possible injustice where a claimant’s representatives have conscientiously endeavoured to comply with all perceived requirements” but he would have instead just extended time for the judicial review, if needed.

The court also said, which DPG agreed with, that the requests to the court to change the e-filing date should have been copied to the Home Secretary’s representatives, and that “In any situation where a party is encountering practical difficulties in its interaction with the Court – and where it is doing all that it can – there must, as it seems to me, be a general virtue in writing to the other parties to explain the position”.

Conclusion

This is a decision that you should read very carefully and in full if you work on these cases. Solidarity with the poor solicitors who had to deal with this one as it must have been enormously stressful, although thankfully permission was also granted. I never thought I would feel nostalgia for the days of legging it down to the Royal Courts of Justice to get a judicial review lodged, where any such issues could be dealt with in person and on the spot.