GDL Law Notes GDL Constitutional and Administrative Law Notes
A collection of the best GDL notes the director of Oxbridge Notes (an Oxford law graduate) could find after combing through dozens of applications from mostly first class students and carefully evaluating each on accuracy, formatting, logical structure, spelling/grammar, conciseness and "wow-factor".
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The following is a more accessible plain text extract of the PDF sample above, taken from our GDL Constitutional and Administrative Law Notes. Due to the challenges of extracting text from PDFs, it will have odd formatting:
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Definition of a Public Body
CPR 54.1 that only public bodies are amenable to review
Historically certiorari was designed to put the decision of an inferior court into the hands of a superior court for ‘swift justice’ – Halsbury’s Laws describes its scope as “the determination of persons or bodies who are by status at charter entrusts with judicial functions”. It required:
Had decision makers gone beyond power
Was it a decision where the recipient had a right to be heard as a principle of natural justice
R v Electricity Commissioners ex parte London Electricity Joint Commission
Commissioners were given power to unify electricity providers & the applicants were to be prejudiced by the scheme. In the context of a quashing order (though this was most commonly sought – has been interpreted as applying to all JR)
Held: reviewable decision
Atkin LJ: “any body of persons having legal authority to determine questions affecting the rights of subjects, and having the duty to act judicially”
Ridge v Baldwin
Dismissal of chief constable by the local watch committee which had a power of dismissal
Held: they must dispose of their power in accordance with natural justice which he found to have been lost in wartime.
Lord Reid: took issue with the ‘judicial’ element, as he found this should be inferred from the nature of the power & not a component itself. Wartime legislation could not evince such a duty, for example, because of the nature of the power
R v Criminal Injuries Compensation Board ex parte Lain (above)
The board argued it was exempt from JR because it was not a public body per Atkin LJ:
It did not have legal authority because it was set up by prerogative
It did not determine questions affecting the rights of subjects
Held: rejecting these arguments - prerogative powers justiciable in theory. Their definition as a public body established – they were one stage in the determination of questions affecting rights
Lord Diplock: no requirement for certiorari that the body “give rise directly to any legally enforceable right or liability” but that they are “one step in the process”
Lord Parker CJ: “the only constant limits throughout were that it was performing a public duty” – the “ambit of certiorari can be said to cover every case in which a body of persons of a public as opposed to a purely private…character has to determine matters affecting subjected provided always that it has a duty to act judicially” – “the exact limits of the ancient remedy by way of certiorari have never been and ought not to be specifically defined. They have varied from time to time, being extended to meet varying conditions”
Atkin LJ’s formula interpreted as a State organ created by statute
Non-Governmental Bodies
Saleem Marsoof: Atkinian formula focused on the “source of power” whereas “the focus has now shifted to the nature of the power” – this has enlarged the canvas of JR but also “given rise to uncertainty as to the boundaries of JR”
Datafin
Panel on Takeovers and Merges was a London M&A regulator. It was not created by statute but was rather self-assumed – it did not have “visible means of legal support”. Statute had been enacted around it subsequently, however. Applicant challenged the Panel’s decision about their handling of a takeover bid.
Held: in principle the panel were subject to review, but the claim failed on its substance
Public law functions of enforcing a code of conduct & regulation
The compulsory nature of their decisions meant they had a duty to act judicially
However the remedies available would only be prospective & declaratory (unless it was a breach of natural justice). Potential exception of misreading its own rules, though large deference to body’s expertise
Lord Donaldson: the law could fashion an “innominate” ground of review for mixed public/private bodies which would replace “formal categorisation” with review which would be “more in the round than might otherwise be the case”
Disappointing “if the courts could not recognise the realities of executive power” & the “subtlety and sometimes complexity of the way in which it can be exerted”
NB: the court is assuming its own role here – its supervisory role over statutory bodies is logically sound as...
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A collection of the best GDL notes the director of Oxbridge Notes (an Oxford law graduate) could find after combing through dozens of applications from mostly first class students and carefully evaluating each on accuracy, formatting, logical structure, spelling/grammar, conciseness and "wow-factor".
...
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