topic 3 - irrationality

Question 1

-discretionary decisions and reasons

Answer 1

-> there is no general duty to give reasons for decisions
-> Padfield

Question 2

-Wednesbury

Answer 2

-> the courts will not interfere unless it is so unreasonable that no public body would have agreed / come to this decision

Question 3

Wednesbury principle

Answer 3

-> as a specific ground of judicial review once it is established that the decision was ‘within the four corners of the law’

Question 4

irrationality

Answer 4

-> GCHQ
-> ‘[A] decision which is so outrageous in its defiance of logic or of accepted moral standards that no sensible person who had applied his mind to the question to be decided could have arrived at it’

Question 5

R (Rogers) v Swindon NHS Primary Care Trust [2006] EWCA Civ 392

Answer 5

-> Secretary of State’s appointment of members of the Orange Lodge to the Parades Commission held by HL to be unreasonable as no reasonable person would regard them as impartial.

Question 6

Re Duffy [2008] UKHL 4

Answer 6

-> Secretary of State’s appointment of members of the Orange Lodge to the Parades Commission held by HL to be unreasonable as no reasonable person would regard them as impartial.

Question 7

low intensity review
(super-Wednesbury)

Answer 7

-> courts raise the bar even higher than a standard Wednesbury
-> R v Secretary of State for the Environment, ex parte Nottinghamshire County Council [1986] AC 240,at 247

Question 8

sub-Wednesbury

Answer 8

-> more rigorous examination
-> according to the gravity of the issue which the decision determines

Question 9

-proportionality - intensity of reviews

Answer 9

-the proportionality test
(1) objective of the measure is sufficiently important to justify the limitation of a protected right,

(2) the measure is…rationally connected to the objective,

(3) whether a less intrusive measure could have been used without unacceptably compromising the achievement of the objective, and

(4) whether, balancing the severity of the measure’s effects on the rights of the persons to whom it applies against the importance of the objective, to the extent that the measure will contribute to its achievement, the former outweighs the latter

Bank Mellat v Her Majesty’s Treasury (No 2) [2013] UKSC 39, [72]