By Evarist Baimu Nyaga Mawalla - Home

lack of jurisdiction to grant interim injunctions against the Crown. The form of finalrelief available against the Crown has never presented any problem. Adeclaration of right made in proceedings against the Crown is invariablyrespected and no injunction is required. If the legislature intended to give thecourt jurisdiction to grant incerim injunctions against the Crown, it is difficult tothink of any reason whey the jurisdictions should be available only in judicialreview proceedings and not in civil proceedings as defined in the 1947 Act.Hence, an enactmeat which in turn applies only to forms of final relief available injudicial review proceedings cannot possibly have been so intended.” (LordBridge’s emphasis.)This is a very closely and carefully argued justification for adopting a narrowapproach to the effect of s 31 of the 1981 Act. It deserves very careful attentioncoming, as it does from a judge who is acknowledged to have made anoutstanding contribution to this areas of the law. Noetheless. I do not regard it asjustifying limiting the natural interpretation of s 31 so as to exclude the jurisdictionto grant injunctions, including interim injunctions, on application for judicial reviewagainst ministers of the Crown. I will try to explain why.First of all it is unasafe to draw any inference from the fact that judicial reviewwas not first introduced by primary legislation. Primary legislation could haveintroduced, the primary legislation, the Judicature (Northern Ireland) Art 1978,came first and was followed by a subsequent amendment of the Rules of the591