If you wish to seek judicial review under a statutory procedure such as the ADJR Act or ALA, or under common law, you may be required to establish that you have "standing to sue" (although there is an argument that if you are seeking one of the writs for jurisdictional error (see: "Remedies in judicial review", above) the standing requirements do not apply).
Depending on the relevant legislation and the remedies sought, standing may be accorded to "a person aggrieved", "any interested person" or even "any person". If you are affected by a decision because you are the subject of it, then you will no doubt have standing to sue. Standing is more of an issue if you are a "bystander" or a community group with some sort of broad interest in the decision-making process (such as an environmental protection group).
Where standing to sue cannot be established, representatives of the group may request the appropriate Attorney-General to initiate proceedings on their behalf. This request is known as an application for a fiat. For example, the Commonwealth Attorney-General gave a fiat to the Australian Episcopal Conference of the Roman Catholic Church to bring an application for judicial review against a Federal Court decision that state legislation refusing single women access to IVF treatment was inconsistent with the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) (see: Re McBain; Ex parte Australian Catholic Bishops Conference [2002] HCA 16).
The Attorney-General will not necessarily grant this fiat and it is very unusual for cases to involve a fiat.
Someone who has an individual interest that is directly affected by administrative action can usually seek to have that action reviewed, as can someone who has a special interest in the subject matter of the action where the action affects the public at large. However, sometimes judicial review is not possible because no one has the relevant standing and a fiat cannot be obtained or is impracticable.
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STANDING TO SUE :: Last updated: Thu Jul 1st 2010