Ultra Vires in UK Law

For reasons which will appear, in my judgment, the use of the phrase "ultra vires" should be restricted to those cases where the transaction is beyond the capacity of the company and therefore wholly void.

It would, however, be inconsistent with the doctrine of ultra vires as it has been developed in English law as a means of controlling abuse of power by the Executive arm of Government if the judgment of a court in proceedings properly constituted that a statutory instrument was ultra vires were to have any lesser consequence in law than to render the instrument incapable of ever having had any legal effect upon the rights or duties of the parties to the proceedings ( c.f. Ridge v. Baldwin [1964] A.C. 40).

I would therefore hold that money paid by a citizen to a public authority in the form of taxes or other levies paid pursuant to an ultra vires demand by the authority is prima facie recoverable by the citizen as of right.

But this argument is in reality a play on the meaning of the word nullity. An Order, even if not made in good faith, is still an act capable of legal consequences. Unless the necessary proceedings are taken at law to establish the cause of invalidity and to get it quashed or otherwise upset it will remain as effective for its ostensible purpose as the most impeccable of Orders.