ROADPEACE JUDICIAL REVIEW

RoadPeace v Secretary of State for Transport and the MIB  EWHC 2725 (Admin) 

UK laws on motor insurance breach European Law

On 7 November Mr Justice Ouseley delivered his long awaited judgment in Court 19 of the Royal Courts of Justice in London in this unprecedentedly wide-ranging judicial review of the government's regulation of compulsory third party motor insurance.

The judicial review was brought by road safety charity RoadPeace after the Secretary of State for Transport ignored its repeated calls for the Road Traffic Act 1988, The Rights Against Insurers Regulations 2002 and his private law agreements with the Motor Insurers' Bureau to be brought into line with the minimum standard of compensatory protection required under the European Motor Insurance Directive 2009/103/EC. 

The government has been forced to concede several of the grounds cited in the judicial review prior to the hearing in February 2017 and changes have been made to the MIB Agreements that govern the compensatory guarantee scheme for victims of hit and run drivers and uninsured drivers.  

The judgment confirms that the UK implementation is defective in several respects.  However, the learned judge did not agree with RoadPeace's concerns that the government's concessions did not go far enough.  Neither did the learned judge accept RoadPeace's contention that the time honoured practice, that enables motor insurers to invoke against accident victims numerous contractual exclusions qualifications and restrictions in liability to evade their statutory liability, conflicts both with Parliament's social policy objective underscoring compulsory insurance and, more to the point, with EU law.

The full transcript of this judgment can be accessed on the BAILII website here: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2017/2725.html

I have been involved in this public law action from the outset. I believe that the judge has misconstrued the EU law motor insurance requirement imposed under European Motor Insurance Directive 2009/103/EC.  

I will post a more detailed blog explaining my views shortly.