Judicial Review
Summary: James represented the Interested Parties (University of Newcastle and King’s College). The claimants sought permission to challenge the decisions of the HFEA to issue licences for research, valid for one year, under section 16 of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 (“the Act”) to the two interested parties in this case. The process involves the creation of embryos by the insertion of the nucleus from a human cell into an enucleated animal oocyte. The grounds of the challenge are two-fold, namely that the defendant had no power to issue such licences and, alternatively, if it did have power, that the power was exercised irrationally.
