The Christchurch mosque shooter's requested judicial review will not go ahead today.

Brenton Tarrant had sought a judicial review, which Justice Geoffrey Venning was prepared to hear in the High Court at Auckland this morning.

But Tarrant did not attend.

Tarrant was representing himself.

The hearing was conducted by telephone conference and was in chambers, meaning any arguments or submissions made cannot be reported.

However, Justice Venning will issue a document later today explaining some of the arguments Tarrant had hoped to pursue.

Survivors of the mosque shootings and relatives of the victims were informed of the hearing yesterday.

The hearing had no bearing on the outcome of the criminal case, or the sentence imposed last year, or on Tarrant's terrorism conviction.

Tarrant is serving a sentence of life imprisonment without parole, the only person in New Zealand history to ever receive the sentence.

He murdered 51 people and attempted to murder 40 others at Christchurch's Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre on March 15, 2019.

He was also convicted for engaging in a terrorist act.

At his sentencing in August, Tarrant did not oppose being locked up for life. He claimed in a pre-sentence report he was not racist or xenophobic.

He described his beliefs to a pre-sentence report writer as "not real" and said he was terribly unhappy and in a "poisoned emotional state".

And he said he'd felt ostracised and wanted to damage society. But he accepted it was without doubt a terror attack.

According to the Ministry of Justice, about 180 judicial reviews are heard every year and only a person affected by a decision can apply for a judicial review.