locus standi

Standing to sue, otherwise known as "locus standi" (or "locus" for short) is an important safeguard against the courts being flooded and public bodies harassed by irresponsible applications. Where a person has no interest at all, or no sufficient interest to support a particular legal claim or action, the person will not have locus standi and thus no standing to sue. It is a threshold test to give standing to sue.

The test for a locus standi is a "sufficient interest" will not be the same in all cases. Where a party's standing to sue is called into question, a Court will consider the powers or the duties in law of those against whom the relief is asked, the position of the claimant in relation to those powers or duties, and the breach of those interest said to have been committed. The question of sufficient interest is not considered in the abstract, or as an isolated issue. It must be taken together with the legal and factual context. Sufficient interest is required in the matter to which the proceedings relate.

Examples of Locus Standi exists

1. contract law - historically speaking, Courts insisted that only parties to a contract may sue in relation to the contract. This is privity of contract. The position has changed with the passage of the Contracts (Third Party Rights) Act 1999. Now, a person who is (1) expressly stated to have the right to enforce a term of the contract, or (2) a term of the contract confers a benefit on a third party person has locus standi to sue in right to those rights, provided the operation of the Act is not excluded in the contract;
2. trademark law:
   1. proprietors of trade marks have locus standi to sue for infringement;
   2. any person "aggrieved" by a groundless threat of infringement, has standing to sue for the threat (subject to a series of exceptions);
   3. an exclusive licensee of a trade mark has locus standi to sue for infringement subject to a number of conditions set out in sections 30 and 31 of the Trade Marks Act 1994
3. patent law: any person has the right to challenge a patent; accordingly there is no test to establish locus standi;
4. torts: a person suffering damage as a result of the tort. Some torts grant standing to sue even where damage is not suffered, such as trespass to land.

In the judgment of Lord Hope in AXA General Insurance Limited and others (Appellants) v The Lord Advocate (Scotland) [2011] UKSC 46:

Like Lord Dunedin in D & J Nicol v Dundee Harbour Trustees, I would not like to risk a definition of what constitutes standing in the public law context. But I would hold that the words "directly affected" which appear in [the rule] capture the essence of what is to be looked for. One must, of course, distinguish between the mere busybody, to whom Lord Fraser of Tullybelton referred in R v Inland Revenue Commissioners, Ex p National Federation of Self-Employed and Small Businesses Ltd [1982] AC 617, and the interest of the person affected by or having a reasonable concern in the matter to which the application related. The inclusion of the word "directly" provides the necessary qualification to the word "affected" to enable the court to draw that distinction. A personal interest need not be shown if the individual is acting in the public interest and can genuinely say that the issue directly affects the section of the public that he seeks to represent.

In R v Inland Revenue Commissioners, Ex p National Federation of Self-Employed and Small Businesses Ltd, the Court found that a union did not have sufficient standing to sue on behalf of Fleet Street causal workers working in the printing industry.

No locus standi

Where a person does not have standing to sue, the person does not have a right to be heard by the Court in the legal proceedings.

[Latin: A place to stand on]