Judicial review is an important tool that citizens can use to make sure the government and other public bodies don’t step outside their legal powers when dealing with you. However, for a number of reasons it often may not be a practical option for challenging decisions:
Expensive – taking a case to the High Court is expensive, as you’ll need to have a lawyer. You may qualify for Legal Aid, but usually you’ll have to pay this back in any case.
Slow – it may take many months before the High Court hears your case and gives a decision.
Narrow scope – the judge won’t be able to change the decision just because they would have made a different decision if it had been up to them originally. And even if the judge does cancel the original decision, they may simply send the issue back to the original decision-maker for them to make a fresh decision – the decision-maker could then just make the same decision after correcting any problems with their process that the judge identified.