This post follows on from my post on “Jurisdictional Error and Administrative Law Values“… There have been many formulations of Wednesbury unreasonableness over the years. For present purposes, however, we can take Lord Greene MR’s description – “a decision…so unreasonable that no reasonable authority could ever have come to it” – as encapsulating the essence […] Read more

Michalak v General Medical Council [2017] UKSC 71 is an interesting case, involving both a narrow point of statutory interpretation and broad issues about the nature of judicial review of administrative action. The narrow point concerned s. 120(7) of the Equality Act. Where a complaint relating to discrimination by a qualifications body “may, by virtue […] Read more

Part 3. Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here. In Canada the creative tension between the rule of law and democracy – constitutional principles recognised by the Supreme Court of Canada[1] – provides a crucible in which judicial review doctrine is formed. There is no ready equivalent in English administrative law, certainly none […] Read more

Part 2! This is a long post. Those familiar with the details of recent developments in England and Canada should skip to the last section, “Explaining Convergence”. For Part I, see here. The period of post-Anisminic divergence had by the 2000s created two markedly different systems of judicial review of administrative action. Since then, however, […] Read more

Here is a long post on the relevance of administrative law values (see my articles, here and here) to the difficult issue of jurisdictional error in English administrative law. Comments welcome! A useful starting point for a discussion of jurisdictional error is the following proposition: “any grant of jurisdiction will necessarily include limits to the […] Read more

Here is the first of several extracts from a paper I am working on, on the subject of convergence and divergence in English and Canadian administrative law At first glance, administrative law in Canada, where courts regularly defer to administrative decision-makers’ interpretations of law and judicial review of administrative action is organised around the concept […] Read more

With my colleagues Professor Kenneth Armstrong, Professor John Bell and Professor Mark Elliott, I have produced  a Brexit briefing paper on ‘Implementing Transition’. Following the Prime Minister’s speech in Florence on 22 September 2017, there is growing, albeit not universal, political consensus around the notion of a transitional – or ‘implementation’ – period. The intention […] Read more

The move by the judges of Quebec’s Superior Court to bring an action claiming that the jurisdiction of the Court of Quebec (a statutory court created by the province) unconstitutionally encroaches on the Superior Court’s jurisdiction has created great excitement in the province (see here). A swift backlash, prompted by the spectacle of judges suing […] Read more

Here is another snippet from my ongoing work on Hogan and Morgan’s Administrative Law in Ireland. The underlying issue here is the extent to which Ireland can implement EU Directives by delegated legislation. Ordinarily, only the Oireachtas (Parliament) can legislate or otherwise change the law: art 15 of the Constitution. Sometimes, however, the use of […] Read more

A few weeks ago, I spoke with Janina Boughey about her new book, Human Rights and Judicial Review in Australia and Canada: The Newest Despotism? You can listen to our conversation here: Here is the description of the book: It is commonly asserted that bills of rights have had a ‘righting’ effect on the principles […] Read more