ABSTRACT
The development of judicial review over the last 30 to 40 years has transformed a small element of the courts' work into an extensive field of law. Successive areas of public life have been brought within the scrutiny of the courts to the point where no field of government activity is offlimits. The publication of a guide to civil servants in 1987 and updated in 1995 entitled The Judge over your shoulder illustrates the extent to which the judges have come to oversee the work of government in its broadest sense. This process of increasing judicial activism is about to enter a new phase with the passing of the Human Rights Act incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights into domestic law. The exact effects of the change are still very much open to debate, but few doubt that one result, in the short term at least, will be to fuel the growth of judicial activism.
