Con & Ad – Judicial Review: Illegality

Lord Diplock - "the decision maker must understand correctly the law that regulates his decision making powers and give effect to it" (GCHQ)

Ultra Vires - high court fees set by chancellor to encourage alternate methods of dispute resolution inhibited access to justice.

Error of Law - HoL stated that FCC had misunderstood rules of scheme to compensate nationalised companies following Suez crisis.

Error of Law - no error, Visitor was interpreting a private system of rules created by the royal charter. Therefore consideration of good cause requirement for redundancy of lecturer was his sole consideration

Error of Law - no error, what area constituted a substantial part of the UK is open to interpretation

Error of Fact, precedent - power to compulsorily purchase land excluded parkland, local authority made mistake as to type of land, so power should not have been exercisable

Error of Fact, evidence -no evidence adduced by surveyors for requirement to demolish flats

Error of fact - Mistake of Fact - new evidence adduced showed risk to the claimants if deported. For MoF the evidence must be established, it must have played a material part in the reasoning process and the applicant can not have been responsible for the mistake.

Error of fact - Mistake of Fact - board ignored doctor's report in favour of report by police officer. Decision to award little compensation was quashed

Abuse of discretion - council banned stag hunting on grounds of morality, but morality was a prohibitory factor. Council had not considered environmental issues, which were a mandatory factor.

Abuse of discretion - consideration of public outrage was a prohibitory factor

Abuse of discretion - improper purpose - Minister refused an appeal to a decision he had made to prevent himself being embarassed

Abuse of discretion - improper purpose - power of revocation of tv licenses not to raise revenue but to prevent improper use, decision to revoke license issued before fee raise was quashed

Fettering of discretion - unlawful fettering where policy on student grants never resulted in one despite 1000s of applications.

Fettering of discretion - lawful fettering - policies are allowed provided that each case is decided on its merits.

Delegation of Discretion - planning permission was refused on advice from Minister of Agriculture. this was illegal as the decision had effectively been handed over.

Delegation of Discretion - delegation of powers conferred by parliament not normally allowed. Task being carried out by official within the department is not really delegation. Individual ministerial responsibility tie in.

Delegation of Discretion - delegation to immigration inspectors was allowed, they were brought within the alter ago principle from Carltona.

Delegation of Discretion - unlawful delegation of power to prevent sugar-beet growing

Ultra vires - implied requirement for economic soundness of aid projects. Therefore going ahead with donation to unsound project was outside of powers granted by Overseas Development & Co-operation Act 1980. Parliament then legislated around this.

Ultra vires - HoL ruled (Lord Reid) that circumstances leading to Agriculture Marketing Act 1958 led to much stricter construction of minister's duty to investigate complaints by milk producers.

Ultra Vires - statute interpreted to include powers related to parking - ancillary to running of housing estate. Therefore within powers.

Abuse of discretion - relevant and irrelvant factors. Older case - judicial outrage at feminist opinion etc. Political views are a legitimate influence on local authority policy.

Delegation of discretion - county council could not delegate censorship duties to british board of film censors.

Delegation of discretion - implicitly permissible to delegate duty to hold property closure enquiries to a senior official in the name of administrative efficiency.

Delegation of discretion - court refused to permit delegation of powers to suspend or dismiss dock workers.

Fettering of discretion - many similar cases may lead a policy to become close to a rule, this is not in itself illegal, as long as any new factors are always considered. industrial grants more amenable to this than human decisions.

Ultra Vires - outside of powers to set up uneconomic clothes delivery service, not ancillary to remit to create bath-houses. Implicit, almost fiduciary relationship with ratepayers money.

Ultra Vires - ancillary use of power to build public lavatories was to build underpass to access the same

Fettering discretion - policy to remove children from female inmates at 19 months failed to account for personal factors.

Delegation of discretion - allowed by default in local government.

Fettering of discretion - distinction between rule and policy