Judicial review LGO Ombudsman and local council

[liberty24]

Hello, I would be grateful for some adivce please. I submitted a pre-action letter to the LGO Ombudsman and local council for Judicial Review, and the Ombudsman has re-opened my case, but they stated that it may be some time before an investigator from their investigation team is able to start looking at my complaint, and that they would be in touch in 6 weeks to update me on the progress allocating ymy complaint to an investigator. I am under the understanding that the case needs to be brought for Judicial Review within 3 months of the final decision, and I am concerned that the delay in them investigating will take me past the 3 months. However, am I correct in thinking that if they have re-opened the case, then the 3 months time limit does not now count, as I am still awaiting their final decision following the re-opening of the case? Many thanks

[atticus]

If the Ombudsman is reopening the investigation, doesn't that resolve the issue in the proposed judicial review?

[liberty24]

Hello atticus, thank you for your feedback. I believe that the Ombudsman reopening the investigation does at least give the potential for the issue in the proposed Judicial Review to be resolved, depending on the outcome of their investigation and revised final response. If I am not satisfied with their revised final response, I am guessing that I would need to reconsider pursuing Judicial Review again, and send another pre-action letter. I just hope that the Judge would not deem the claim to be out of time for missing the time window for acting on the Ombudsman's first final response, if that makes sense.

[atticus]

NB none of what I have said applies to the Council's decision. If you are going to JR that and are not already out of time, you probably need to get on with it.