Administrative - 1970- 1979

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This page lists 23 cases, and was prepared on 25 August 2008.

Agricultural, Horticultural and Forestry Industry Training Board -v- Kent [1970] 2 QB 19
1970 CA	Administrative	Casemap 1 Citers
	A notice of assessment to a levy which was served by the appellant Board failed to provide an address for service of a notice of appeal as required. Held: The decision notice was invalidated by the omission.
	Statute References omitted

Corbett -v- Corbett (otherwise Ashley) [1971] P 83
1 Feb 1970 FD Ormrod J	Administrative, Family	Casemap 1 Cites 1 Citers
	There had been a purported marriage in 1963 between a man and a male to female trans-sexual. Held: Because marriage is essentially a union between a man and a woman, the relationship depended on sex, and not on gender. The law should adopt the chromosomal, gonadal and genital tests. If all three are congruent, that should determine a person's sex for the purpose of marriage. Any operative intervention should be ignored. The biological sexual constitution of an individual is fixed at birth, at the latest, and cannot be changed either by the natural development of organs of the opposite sex or by medical or surgical means. The marriage was void ab initio. As to the difference between a declaration under RSC Ord.15, and a decree of nullity, Ormrod J. observed:- "The importance of this distinction is, of course, that on a decree of nullity, the court has the power to entertain an application for ancillary relief whereas if a declaration order is made, there is not such power." Since ecclesiastical courts did in fact grant declaratory sentences in cases of meretricious marriages, there was no discretion to withhold any decree of nullity. "[o]n the facts as I have found them to be, a matrimonial relationship between the petitioner and the respondent was a legal impossibility at all times and in all circumstances, whereas a marriage which is void on the grounds of bigamy, non-age or failure of third party consents, might, in other circumstances, have been a valid marriage." Sex is an essential determinant of marriage, because: "it is and always has been recognised as the union of man and woman." Ormrod J: "It is common ground between all the medical witnesses that the biological sexual constitution of an individual is fixed at birth (at the latest), and cannot be changed, either by the natural development of organs of the opposite sex, or by medical or surgical means. The respondent's operation, therefore, cannot affect her true sex. The only cases where the term "change of sex" is appropriate are those in which a mistake as to sex is made at birth and subsequently revealed by further medical investigation."

British Oxygen Co Ltd -v- Ministry of Technology; British Oxygen Co Ltd -v- Board of Trade [1971] AC 610; [1970] UKHL 4
15 Jul 1970 HL Viscount Dilhorne, Lord Reid	Evidence, Administrative	Casemap 1 Citers
	It was reasonable and right for a public authority to make known to those interested the policy it was going to follow: '[b]y doing so fruitless applications involving expense and expenditure of time might be avoided'. If a policy is not to be applied in accordance with its meaning, as would have been the case on the original wording of section 6.1 of the licensing policy, there can be no such guidance."
	Link[s] omitted

Adams -v- Adams [1971] P 188
1971 Sir Jocelyn Simon P	Administrative	Casemap 1 Citers
	Despite the lack of modern English authority applying the doctrine, it was still part of the English common law, that the acts of a de facto officer were validated. The de facto officer must have some basis for his assumption of office, variously expressed as ‘colourable title’ or ‘colourable authority’. The President declined to recognise a divorce decree granted in Rhodesia by a Judge who had been appointed under the Constitution adopted in 1965 after the Unilateral Declaration of Independence. The case did not fall within the de facto doctrine ‘even so widely stated’ as in State v Carroll because the circumstances of his appointment which made it invalid in the eyes of English law were very well known, indeed notorious. The President could find no trace of its ever being applied during a rebellion to accord recognition to the judicial or official acts or under a usurping power.

Coleen Properties Ltd -v- Minister of Housing and Local Government [1971] 1 All ER 1049; (1971) 1 WLR 433
1971 CA d Denning MR, Sachs LJ, Buckley LJ	Land, Administrative	Casemap 1 Citers
	The minister confirmed a compulsory purchase order depite it having been made without any supporting evidence. Held: The order was set aside.

Szechter (orse Karsov) -v- Szechter [1971] P 286
1971 Sir Jocelyn Simon P	Family, Administrative	Casemap 1 Cites 1 Citers
	The parties, who had been given leave to stay in the United Kingdom for only a limited period, had acquired a domicile of choice in England by residing here with the intention of making this country their permanent home. It was immaterial that their intentions were liable to be frustrated by the decision of the Secretary of State for the Home Department as to permission for their continued residence here.

Wiseman -v- Borneman [1971] AC 297
1971 HL Lord Reid, Lord Guest	Administrative	Casemap 1 Citers
	The requirement of fairness should not degenerate into hard-and-fast rules and any additional steps to the statutory procedure must not frustrate the apparent purpose of the legislation. Lord Guest: The principles "should be reasonably clear and definite" and cases should not be "decided ex post facto on some uncertain basis."

Attorney General -v- Chaudry [1971] 1 WLR 1614
1971 CA Lord Denning MR	Litigation Practice, Administrative	Casemap 1 Citers
	The court has jurisdiction to grant a civil law remedy by way of injunction in order to enforce the public law, except in cases where statute had expressly or by necessary implication removed the jurisdiction. Whenever Parliament has enacted a law and given a particular remedy for the breach of it, such remedy being in an inferior court, nevertheless the High Court always has reserve power to enforce the law so enacted by way of an injunction or declaration or other suitable remedy. The High Court has jurisdiction to ensure obedience to the law whenever it is just and convenient so to do.

Agricultural, Horticultural and Forestry Industry Training Board -v- Aylesbury Mushrooms [1972] 1 All ER 280
1972 Donaldson J	Administrative
	The Secretary of State proposed to introduce new regulations for the training of agricultural workers. It sent a notice inviting representation from a body representing the mushroom growing industry, but the letter was not received. The regulation was made, and the respondent now argued that it was not bound by the regulations because the industry had not been consulted as required. Held: Consultation requires more than the mere giving of notice, or as in this case the sending of a letter: "the essence of consultation is the communication of a genuine invitation, extended with a receptive mind, to give advice". Having decided that the industry representative should be consulted, the Secretary could not go ahead without doing so. The regulations were not binding on the defendant.

Regina -v- Liverpool Corporation ex parte Liverpool Taxi Fleet Operators Association [1972] 2 QB 299
1972 CA Lord Denning, Lord Roskill and Sir Gordon Willmer	Administrative	Casemap 1 Citers
	A number of taxi cab owners challenged a decision of the Council to increase the numbers of hackney cabs operating in the city. At a public meeting with the council prior to the decision, the chairman had given a public undertaking that the numbers of hackney cabs would not be increased until the proposed legislation, which included provisions for controlling private hire vehicles, had been enacted by Parliament. Held: (Majority) On account of this public representation, the applicants were "justifiably aggrieved" by the council's subsequent unfair conduct. Lord Denning obiter: Even in the absence of such a public undertaking, the applicants would have had a right to be consulted: "It is perhaps putting it a little high to say that they [Liverpool Corporation] are exercising judicial functions. They may be said to be exercising an administrative function. But even so, in our modern approach, they must act fairly: and the Court will see that they do so. To apply that principle here; suppose the corporation proposed to reduce the number of taxicabs from 300 to 200, it would be their duty to hear the taxicab owners' association: because their members would be greatly affected. They would certainly be persons aggrieved. Likewise suppose the corporation propose to increase the number of taxicabs from 300 to 350 or 400 or more it is the duty of the corporation to hear those affected before coming to a decision adverse to their interests." Lord Roskill and Sir Gordon Willmer emphasised the unequivocal public undertaking given by the Respondents. Roskill L.J.: "It has been said that the council and its relevant committee and sub-committee were never under any duty to hear any representations from the Applicants. That may or may not be correct. In the light of what has happened, I do not think it necessary to express any opinion upon that question...It seems to me to allow the council to resile from that undertaking without notice to and representations from the Applicants is to condone unfairness in a case where the duty was to act fairly." Sir Gordon Willmer: "It seems to me that in these very special circumstances, having regard to the history of how this matter had been dealt with in the past, and having regard especially to the giving of the undertaking, the Applicants are justified in regarding themselves as "aggrieved" by what I can only describe as unfair treatment on the part of Liverpool Corporation." An explicit representation had been made and relied upon. A legitimate expectation had been created.

Tarr -v- Tarr [1973] AC 254
1973 HL Lord Pearson	Administrative	Casemap 1 Citers
	A power to regulate does not imply a power to prohibit.

Kingston London Borough Council -v- Environment Secretary [1973] 1 WLR 1549
1973 Lord Widgery C.J	Administrative, Planning	Casemap 1 Cites 1 Citers
	Planning was granted for the rebuilding of a railway station on condition that the land allocated for parking should be made available for such purposes at all times and used for no other purpose. The station was duly rebuilt but the car park was not provided. The local planning authority served an enforcement notice requiring compliance with the condition. Held: The words of the statute clearly on their face entitle the local planning authority to impose conditions which affect land not the subject of the application itself and which go to the restriction of the past user or removal of existing work. Although they are wide it has been recognised for a long time that they are subject to certain restrictions. The two principal restrictions which the court had placed on those words are first that a condition is invalid as being contrary to law unless it is reasonably related to the development in the planning permission which has been granted: it must not be used for an ulterior purpose, and second a condition which is so clearly unreasonable that no reasonable planning authority could have imposed it may be regarded as ultra vires and contrary to law and treated as such in proceedings in this court

F Hoffmann La Roche & Co A G -v- Secretary of State for Trade and Industry [1975] AC 295
1975 HL Lord Diplock, Lord Reid, Lord Wilberforce	Administrative, Litigation Practice	Casemap 1 Citers
	The Secretary of State sought an interlocutory injunction under the Act to restrain the appellant from charging prices in excess of those fixed by a statutory instrument he had made. The appellant argued that the statutory instrument was ultra vires, because it had been based upon a report by the Monopolies Commission, which the appellant maintained, had been produced without due regard to principles of natural justice. The Secretary of State objected to giving a cross undertaking in damages. Held: The Secretary of State was not required to give such an undertaking. Lord Reid said that normally a claimant "cannot be compelled to give an undertaking but if he will not give it he will not get the injunction." The fact that an individual has suffered loss because of an invalid administrative act does not in itself entitle him to be indemnified. Lord Diplock: "The court has no power to compel an applicant for an interim injunction to furnish an undertaking as to damages." and "The undertaking is not given to the defendant but to the court itself. Non-performance of it is contempt of court, not breach of contract, and attracts the remedies available for contempts, but the court exacts the undertaking for the defendant's benefit. It retains a discretion not to enforce the undertaking if it considers that the conduct of the defendant in relation to the obtaining or continuing of the injunction or the enforcement of the undertaking makes it inequitable to do so, but if the undertaking is enforced the measure of the damages payable under it is not discretionary. It is assessed on an inquiry into damages at which principles to be applied are fixed and clear. The assessment is made upon the same basis as that upon which damages for breach of contract would be assessed if the undertaking had been a contract between the plaintiff and the defendant that the plaintiff would not prevent the defendant from doing that which he was restrained from doing by the terms of the injunction."
	Statute References omitted

Conteh -v- Onslow Fane and another Times, 26 June 1975; Bar Library Transcript No. 291 of 1975
26 Jun 1975 CA	Contract, Administrative	Casemap 1 Citers
	Mr Conteh, a boxer, was accused of misconduct in breaking his contracts with his former manager and former promoter, and the High Court proceedings had been brought by him for declarations that these contracts were not binding on him. It was conceded by the Board that any finding that the contracts were binding on Mr Conteh would be provisional, and that a subsequent High Court judgment to a different effect would prevail.

Congreve -v- Secretary of State for the Home Office [1976] 1 QB 629; [1976] 1 All ER 697; [1977] 2 WLR 291
1976 CA Geoffrey Lane LJ, Lord Denning MR	Administrative	Casemap 1 Citers
	The appellant had bought his television licence when the charge was £12 although the minister had already announced that it would later be increased to £18. The Home Office wrote to those who had purchased their licence before the new charge came into effect demanding the payment of the extra £6 failing which their licence would be revoked. Held: It was an abuse of the Minister's undoubted discretionary power to revoke TV licences for him to seek to revoke a validly issued licence as a means of levying money which Parliament had given the executive no power to demand. The courts will rule invalid the exercise of a discretion which contains no express limitations in such a way as to run counter to the policy of the legislation by which it was conferred. Geoffrey Lane LJ: "the proposed revocation … is illegal for two reasons. First, it is coupled with an illegal demand which taints the revocation and makes that illegal too. Secondly, or possibly putting the same matter in a different way, it is an improper exercise of a discretionary power to use a threat to exercise that power as a means of extracting money which Parliament has given the executive no mandate to demand: see Attorney-General v Wilts United Dairies Ltd (1921) 37 TLR 884." Lord Denning MR: "There is another reason for holding that the demands for £6 to be unlawful. They were made contrary to the Bill of Rights. They were an attempt to levy money for use of the Crown without the authority of Parliament: and that is quite enough to damn them." and "If the licence is to be revoked - and his money forfeited - the Minister would have to give good reasons to justify it. Of course, if the licensee had done anything wrong - if he had given a cheque for £12 which was dishonoured, or if he had broken the conditions of the licence - the Minister could revoke it. But when the licensee has done nothing wrong at all, I do not think the Minister can lawfully revoke the licence, at any rate, not without offering him his money back, and not even then except for good cause. If he should revoke it without giving reasons, or for no good reason, the courts can set aside his revocation and restore the licence. It would be a misuse of the power conferred on him by Parliament: and these courts have the authority - and, I would add, the duty - to correct a misuse of power by a Minister or his department, no matter how much he may resent it or warn us of the consequences if we do."
	Statute References omitted

HTV Ltd -v- Price Commission [1976] ICR 170
1976 CA Scarman LJ	Administrative	Casemap 1 Citers
	Policies created by public bodies are a means of promoting consistency while not fettering the discretion of a public body. They allow others to know how the authority will respond to those who must deal with the authority. In maiing such policies . . "It is a common place of modern law that such bodies [the Price Commission] must act fairly … it is not really surprising that a code must be implemented fairly, and that the courts have power to redress unfairness".

Attorney-General -v- Jonathan Cape Ltd [1976] QB 752; [1976] 3 All E R 484
1976 Lord Widgery CJ	Media, Administrative
	Lord Widgery CJ: 'the court must have power to deal with publication which threatens national security.' As regards confidence in publicly owned material: "There must, however, be a limit in time after which the confidential character of the information, and the duty of the court to restrain publication will lapse" and "It may, of course, be intensely difficult in a particular case, to say at what point the material loses its confidential character, on the ground that publication will no longer undermine the doctrine of cabinet responsibility."

Laker Airways -v- Department of Trade [1977] QB 643
1977 Roskill LJ	Administrative	Casemap 1 Citers
	The court discussed the status of guidance issued by the respondent: "guidance is assistance in reaching a decision proffered to him who has to make the decision, but guidance does not compel any particular decision"

Trendtex Trading Corporation -v- Central Bank of Nigeria [1977] QB 529
1977 CA Shaw LJ, Denning MR	Administrative, Commercial, International, Jurisdiction	Casemap 1 Citers
	The court considered the developing international jurisdiction over commercial activities of state bodies which might enjoy state immunity, and sought to ascertain whether or not the Central Bank of Nigeria was entitled to immunity from suit. Held: The key questions are those of "governmental control" and "governmental functions" and that these are to be determined as a matter of English law, although the English courts may have regard to the position under the law where the body is incorporated and account can be taken of the view of the government concerned. International law was incorporated into domestic law unless it was in conflict with statutory provision. This enabled domestic law to respond to changes in international law rather than it being bound by the interpretation of international law upon a particular point when it was first decided, if international law had later evolved. Domestic law could evolve as the incorporated international law evolved: "Seeing that the rules of international law have changed – and do change – and that the courts have given effect to the changes without any Act of Parliament, it follows to my mind inexorably that the rules of international law, as existing from time to time, do form part of our English law." and "we should give effect to those changes and not be bound by any idea of stare decisis in international law" and "Governments everywhere engage in activities which although incidental in one way or another to the business of government are in themselves essentially commercial in their nature." Lord Denning MR said that it was necessary to look to all the evidence to see whether the organisation in question was under government control and exercised governmental functions in order to determine whether it was part of the State. Shaw LJ stated that whether a particular organisation is to be accorded the status of a department of government or not must depend upon its constitution, its powers and duties and its activities. There could be no intermediate hybrid status occupied by the bank where it was regarded as a government department for certain purposes and as an ordinary commercial or financial institution for different purposes.

Regina -v- Secretary of State for the Environment ex parte Ostler [1977] 1 QB 122
1977 CA	Administrative, Planning
	The six week period during which a challenge must be made to a compulsory purchase is not capable of extension under the rules of court. The legislative intention is that questions as to the invalidity may be raised on the specified grounds in the prescribed time and in the prescribed manner, but that otherwise the jurisdiction of the court is excluded in the interests of certainty.

Olutu -v- Home Office [1997] 1 WLR 328
1978	Torts - Other, Administrative	Casemap 1 Citers
	The availablility of a remedy by way of judicial review for a breach of statutory duty is a strong indicator that a private law action for damages will not lie for the breach.

Regina -v- Local Commissioner for Administration for the North and East Area of England ex parte Bradford Metropolitan City Council [1979] 2 All ER 881; [1979] QB 287
1979	Administrative, Local Government	Casemap 1 Citers
	The concept of ‘maladministration’ is broad and includes bias, inattention, delay, incompetence, ineptitude, perversity, turpitude and arbitrariness.

London and Clydeside Estates -v- Aberdeen District Council [1980] SC (HL) 1; [1980] 1 WLR 182; [1979] UKHL 7
8 Nov 1979 HL Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone LC, Lord Wilberforce, Lord Fraser of Tullybelton, Lord Russell of Killowen, Lord Keith of Kinkel	Scotland, Litigation Practice, Administrative	Casemap 1 Cites 1 Citers
	The appellants had sought a Certificate of Alternative Development. The certificate provided was defective in that it did not notify the appellants, as required, of their right to appeal. Their appeal out of time was refused. Held: The House considered the consequences of a failure to comply with a procedural requirement, and the different classes of such requirements: 'The contention was that in the categorisation of statutory requirements into "mandatory" and "directory", there was a subdivision of the category "directory" into two classes composed (i) of those directory requirements "substantial compliance" with which satisfied the requirement to the point at which a minor defect of trivial irregularity could be ignored by the court and (ii) those requirements so purely regulatory in character that failure to comply could in no circumstances affect the validity of what was done.' Lord Hailsham: 'When Parliament lays down a statutory requirement for the exercise of legal authority it expects its authority to be obeyed down to the minutest detail. But what the courts have to decide in a particular case is the legal consequence of non-compliance on the rights of the subject viewed in the light of a concrete state of facts and a continuing chain of events. It may be that what the courts have to decide in a particular case is the legal consequence of non-compliance on the rights of the chain of events. It may be that what the courts are faced with is not so much a stark choice of alternatives but a spectrum of possibilities in which one compartment or description fades gradually into another. At one end of this spectrum there may be cases in which a fundamental obligation may have been so outrageously and flagrantly ignored or defied that the subject may safely ignore what has been done and treat it as having no legal consequences upon himself. In such a case if the defaulting authority seeks to rely on its action it may be that the subject is entitled to use the defect in procedure simply as a shield or defence without having taken any positive action of his own. At the other end of the spectrum the defect in procedure may be so nugatory or trivial that, if the subject is so misguided as to rely on the fault, the courts will decline to listen to his complaint. ' and 'though language like "mandatory," "directory," "void," "voidable," "nullity" and so forth may be helpful in argument, it may be misleading in effect if relied on to show that the courts, in deciding the consequences of a defect in the exercise of power, are necessarily bound to fit the facts of a particular case and a developing chain of events into rigid legal categories or to stretch or cramp them on a bed of Procrustes invented by lawyers for the purposes of convenient exposition. As I have said, the case does not really arise here, since we are in the presence of total non-compliance with a requirement which I have held to be mandatory. Nevertheless I do not wish to be understood in the field of administrative law and in the domain where the courts apply a supervisory jurisdiction over the acts of subordinate authority purporting to exercise statutory powers, to encourage the use of rigid legal classifications. The jurisdiction is inherently discretionary and the court is frequently in the presence of differences of degree which merge almost imperceptibly into differences of kind.'
	Statute References omitted
	Link[s] omitted