ABC announce legal grounds for judicial review of the Department for Transport

We have now dispatched a Letter Before Action to the Secretary of State for Transport, and are finally able to share the grounds on which we intend to apply for permission to bring a judicial review of the DfT.

The grounds on which we shall seek permission from the Court include:

1. The unlawful lack of transparency surrounding the Secretary of State’s monitoring and enforcement of Govia’s franchise agreement and remedial plan.
2. The unlawful failure of the Secretary of State to adequately inform himself of the facts in order to comply with his duty to monitor and enforce the franchise agreement.
3. The unlawful failure of the Secretary of State to comply with his own Equality Act 2010 duties by failing to monitor and enforce the obligation to provide an adequate train service for disabled passengers.
4. Assuming that Govia is in breach of its agreement (a fact which is obscured by the DfT’s ongoing lack of transparency) the failure to penalise Govia for its failure to meet performance benchmarks, amounting to unlawful state aid.

Our lawyers have requested a response by 11^th November. If the DfT do not address these concerns by way of a full response, we will issue an application for permission to bring a judicial review. If that application is successful, we will be launching a second crowdfunder to take us all the way through the Court proceedings.

Many thanks to all our supporters for your contributions, and your patience. The process was slowed considerably by the lack of transparency from the DfT; but with the recent Select Committee report strongly backing up our arguments, we can now move quickly towards demanding this transparency in court if necessary.

Background to the case:

The Association of British Commuters’ legal campaign began on 5^th September 2016 and our lawyers have been corresponding with the Department for Transport since this time, requesting the release of documents and information that would confirm whether Govia are in breach of the terms of the franchise agreement and remedial plan.

The DfT have refused to release many of these documents, demonstrating the same lack of transparency that the Select Committee for Transport called “completely unacceptable” and deliberately “evasive” in their report of 14^th Some of our requests are still being considered.

The Transport Select Committee’s damning report backs up the arguments that ABC has been making for months, and has strengthened our case on all of the above points. (“6^th Report – The future of rail: Improving the rail passenger experience”, published on 14^th October.)

The legal grounds on which we go forward are the work of Matthew Garbutt, our instructed solicitor at Devonshires LLP; and two of the UK’s leading barristers; Jamas Hodivala and Rhodri Thompson QC.