Licensing and Permits in UK Law

Mr Matthias submitted that as a matter of principle, as well as precedent, there are good reasons why the magistrates' court should pay great attention to the decision of the licensing authority and should only allow an appeal if satisfied, on the evidence before it, that the decision was wrong.

As Mr Matthias rightly submitted, the licensing function of a licensing authority is an administrative function. By contrast, the function of the district judge is a judicial function. The licensing authority has a duty, in accordance with the rule of law, to behave fairly in the decision-making procedure, but the decision itself is not a judicial or quasi-judicial act. It is the exercise of a power delegated by the people as a whole to decide what the public interest requires.

In any case, deciding what (if any) conditions should be attached to a licence as necessary and proportionate to the promotion of the statutory licensing objectives is essentially a matter of judgment rather than a matter of pure fact.

It is right in all cases that the magistrates' court should pay careful attention to the reasons given by the licensing authority for arriving at the decision under appeal, bearing in mind that Parliament has chosen to place responsibility for making such decisions on local authorities.

It is limited to offences arising under enactments which prohibit the doing an act save in specified circumstances or by persons of specified classes or with specified qualifications or with the licence or permission of specified authorites Whenever the prosecution seeks to rely on this exception, the Court must construe the enactment under which the charge is laid.

My Lords, if there is one principle which forms an integral part of the English law, it is that every member of a body engaged in a judicial proceeding must be able to act judicially; and it has been held over and over again that, if a member of such a body is subject to a bias (whether financial or other) in favour of or against either party to the dispute or is in such a position that a bias must be assumed, he ought not to take part in the decision or even to sit upon the tribunal.

In most instances where a discretionary power is conferred it would be wrong for the decision maker to frame a rule in absolute terms because to do so would defeat the statutory purpose. However, it seems to me that there are certain exceptional statutory contexts where a policy may lawfully exclude exceptions to the rule because to allow exceptions would substantially undermine an important legislative aim which underpins the grant of discretionary power to the authority.