{UK} Law challenge to Gore school film (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

The government faces a legal challenge for sending every secondary school in England a copy of Al Gore's climate change film An Inconvenient Truth.

The Department for Education and Skills confirmed on Thursday it had sent out a resource pack for science, geography and citizenship lessons.

But a father from Kent, Stuart Dimmock, has lodged papers at London's High Court seeking judicial review.

He is reportedly also seeking to prevent schools receiving the DVDs.
***
more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/6625955.stm

Not a *whole* lot of info in the article. UK DUers -- what's a "judicial review" imply??

ONE COPY PER SCHOOL, and this guy's bent out of shape? I thought US wingnuts set the gold standard, but I guess not.

[Dead_Parrot]

1. A "judicial review"...

...is where you haul the government up for not following the spirit of the law, even if they are following the letter. The recent case of the Supreme Court hauling up the EPA over whether or not CO₂ is a pollutant was basically a judicial review, even if it the US doesn't use the phrase. He'd have to go into the court and convince then that it's somehow wrong for the department of education to educate kids, which... err...

Lodging the application doesn't mean it will get heard, though.

The DfES said it would await the outcome of the court application with interest.

You're not kidding. :)

[depakid]

2. Oddly enough, I know an otherwise reasonable Brit who's a denier

He's a former lorry driver (which might have something to do with it....

His rejection of the science on the subject (as well as his disdain for Al Gore) really is impressive.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. From a parliamentary look at judicial review

Judicial review allows individuals, businesses, and other groups to challenge the lawfulness
of decisions made by Ministers, Government Departments, local authorities and other public
bodies. The main grounds of review are that the decision maker has acted outside the scope
of its statutory powers, that the decision was made using an unfair procedure, or that the
decision was an unreasonable one. The Human Rights Act 1998 created an additional
ground, making it unlawful for public bodies to act in a way incompatible with Convention
rights.
...
Judicial review is not concerned with the ‘merits’ of a decision or whether the public body
has made the ‘right’ decision. The only question before the court is whether the public
body has acted unlawfully. In particular, it is not the task of the courts to substitute its
judgement for that of the decision maker. The courts would traditionally only intervene
where a public body had used a power for a purpose not allowed by the legislation
(acting ultra vires) or in circumstances where when using its powers, the body has acted
in a manner that was obviously unreasonable or irrational. In cases where there is a real
unfairness, the courts may now be willing to intervene where the public body has made a
serious factual error in reaching its decision.

http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp2006/rp06-044.pdf

I wouldn't have thought he stands a chance of succeeding. The Department of Education has always had the ability to produce and distribute educational material on subjects, and I can't see any human rights aspects to this. Sending out the packs is not 'irrational' - with the huge weight of scientific opinion behind it, it's clearly reasonable (sending out global warming denial information might make for an interesting case, though - how many dissenting scientists would it take to stop denial being unreasonable?)

The normal reply to things like this is "you don't like it? Then vote for another party at the next election".