The remains of King Richard III of England were discovered, more than 500 years after his death, under a public car park in Leicester. The claimant, the Plantagenet Alliance, brought an application for judicial review challenging the decisions of the Secretary of State for Justice, Leicester City Council and the University of Leicester in relation to the grant of a licence for the exhumation of those remains and the plan for their re-interment. The claimant is a not-for-profit entity established by its sole director and shareholder, the sixteenth great-nephew of Richard III, to represent the interests of a number of collateral descendants of that king. The claimant was principally concerned with the location of the re-interment of the remains, there being a proposal to re-inter them within Leicester Cathedral, as the nearest Christian church or churchyard in the parish of the original interment. The plan to re-inter in Leicester Cathedral had been formed after consultation and communication with the Royal Household, Cathedral Chapters of Leicester Cathedral and York Minster, the City Councils of Leicester and York, the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church, the University of Leicester Archaeology Services and the Richard III Society. All were content for the re-interment to take place in Leicester Cathedral, save that the Chapter of York Minster, which had initially agreed to that plan, maintained a neutral position at the hearing. The views of the descendants of the king were not sought and the challenges of the claimant centred around the failure of the relevant bodies to consult those descendants.

In determining whether the claimant had standing to pursue an application for judicial review, the court noted that the relationship of those represented by the claimant (sixteenth-, seventeenth- and eighteenth-generation descendants) to Richard III was attenuated in terms of time and lineage such that it might not suffice for personal standing to be established. Nevertheless, the court held that, given the public interest in this exceptional case, the claimant had raised points of broader public interest such as to give it standing as a public interest litigant.

The court dismissed the claims against the city council and the university as bound to fail on the basis that the university was at no stage exercising a public function in relation to the re-interment, and the city council had no duty to consult or power to intervene once the licence had been granted and the remains had been removed from its land. In relation to the claim against the secretary of state, the court held the secretary of state had carried out sufficient enquiry to be able to grant the licence without seeking further information by way of public or familial consultation. The secretary of state had known that there could be no close relatives and that, in addition to those represented by the claimant, the potential descendants might number in the millions. There was no duty to consult arising from any established practice of consulting in such circumstances. Any additional duty to consult arising from the exceptionality of this case had been discharged by the secretary of state ensuring that he was sufficiently aware of the views of sovereign, state and the Church. Given the clear understanding that there were only two possible contenders for the location of re-interment, Leicester Cathedral and York Minster, and that the rival arguments were well known, there was no sensible basis for a requirement of general public consultation. The application was dismissed. [RA]