Judicial review Flashcards
ex p WDM
Pressure groups: standing to bring a claim. Five factors to consider are: (a) the importance of the matter (b) whether anybody is better placed to bring the claim (c) the need to uphold the rule of law (d) the role of the pressure group (e) the relevant statutory duty involved
ex p Datafin
What constitutes a public body?
(a) if the body making a decision has been set up under statute or under delegated legislation, or derives its power under a reviewable prerogative power, then it is a public body (power test)
(b) when (a) is not satisfied, if the body making the decision is exercising public law functions, it may still be a public body
Anisminic
Full ouster clause: it cannot have been the will of Parliament to protect a decision of a public body outside its permitted field. Whenever a body which had been created by statute had misunderstood the law which regulated its decision-making powers, any decision based on such a misunderstanding had to be ultra vires and a nullity. Parliament, in enacting the statute which gave the body its powers, could not have intended decisions which were legally incorrect to be immune from challenge.
Errors of law are always amenable by judicial review
ex p Ostler
Partial ouster clauses are valid
Vine v National Dock Labour Board
Decision-making powers, once given by Parliament, cannot then be further delegated, or sub-delegated
Carltona v Commissioners of Works
government Ministers sub-delegating decision-making powers to civil servants in their departments provides an exception to the general rule against delegation.
Under the convention of individual ministerial responsibility, government ministers are ultimately responsible to Parliament for their departments, so there is an expectation that they act through their civil servants in taking even major decisions
Lavender v Minister of Housing
Prohibition to act under the dictation of another
British Oxygen v Minister of Technology
Prohibition to apply a general policy in too strict a manner. Decision maker must retain the freedom to consider individual cases
Congreve v Home Office
Public authorities will be acting illegally if they use their powers for an improper or unauthorised purpose (TV licence case)
Westminster corporation v LNWR
Where there are dual purposes behind a decision, provided the permitted/authorised purpose is the ‘primary’ purpose, then the decision is not ultra vires and should stand
Roberts v Hopwood
A public authority must both disregard irrelevant consideration and take into account relevant considerations when exercising its powers. Breach of either of these two duties will suffice for making a decision illegal
ex p Klawaya
only error of facts which go to the root of a public authority’s capacity to act are reviewable
The Wednesbury principle
The test for irrationality is whether, having regard to relevant considerations only, the decision maker came to a conclusion so unreasonable that no reasonable authority could ever have come to it
CCSU v Minister for Civil Service
To be irrational, a decision needs to be so outrageous in its defiance of logic, or of accepted moral standards, that no sensible person could have arrived at it
ex p Pinochet
Where the decision-maker has a direct interest in the outcome of the decision, the court is normally obliged automatically to quash the decision as bias on the part of the decision-maker is presumed. Direct interest extends from cases of direct financial or proprietary interest to cases of non-pecuniary interest
