Cocks v Thanet DC [1983] 2 AC 286

• Plaintiff, without using JR, sued Defendant for failing in its statutory duty to provide him with housing.

• HL found for Defendant, saying that as a general rule it would be contrary to public policy and an abuse of process to allow a person to proceed by way of an ordinary action in order to establish that a public authority's decision had infringed rights entitled to protection under public law.

• The general rule applied in circumstances where a plaintiff was obliged to impugn a public authority's determination as a condition precedent to enforcing a statutory private law right, as here, and so Plaintiff ought not proceed by way of private action. 

Lord Bridge

• The general rule, as set out by Diplock (see above), should apply to cases about whether the PA ought to confer a benefit as much as cases about whether it should deprive someone of a pre-existing benefit.

• This is because the protection offered by the ordinance/SCA is important here two - namely:

The need to obtain leave to apply on the basis of sworn evidence which makes frank disclosure of all relevant facts known to the applicant;

the court's discretionary control of both discovery and cross-examination; the capacity of the court to act with the utmost speed when necessary;

and the avoidance of the temptation for the court to substitute its own decision of fact for that of the housing authority.