Judicial Review Of Legislative Policy
| Author | R. M. Jackson |
| Published date | 01 November 1955 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1955.tb00323.x |
| Date | 01 November 1955 |
JUDICIAL REVIEW
OF
LEGISLATIVE POLICY
A
NUMBER
of lawyers are at present pressing for a considerable
extension of judicial review of the decisions of tribunals and of
Ministers. In order to show the need for this extension certain
instances have been taken which are supposed to show that
if
there
had been machinery for judicial review an injustice would have
been prevented. The three instances with which this note is con-
cerned have been taken by the Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Denning’
and by a group of conservative lawyers in a booklet
Rule
of
La7o
published in March,
1955.
In that case the decision
of an Agricultural Land Tribunal upholding a proposal of the
Minister to acquire some requisitioned land had been attacked on
the ground that the tribunal had
not
been properly constituted.
The Court of Appeal found that the defect, if there had been one,
had been cured and that the tribunal was properly constituted.
There were, however, two features about the proceedings before
the tribunal that were mentioned in the law courts and that have
been brought into prominence again. The first is the statement
that
“
the appeals-all twenty-four of them-were heard in a single
day.”3 That statement is presumably intended to suggest that
the cases were taken
so
quickly that they could not have been
investigated adequately. All the twenty-four cases arose from
similar circumstances, being the splitting up of what had been
one agricultural unit into a number of plots with different owner-
ships. The cases were heard together because that was the wish
of the professional representatives who appeared on behalf of the
various owners. These representatives included counsel and
solicitors. The case lasted for one day for the simple reason that
the evidence produced and the addresses to the tribunal did not
take any longer. The tribunal sits to hear whatever evidence and
and representations may be put before it, and
it
is not responsible,
any more than a common law judge is responsible, for deciding
how the parties shall present their case.
No
lawyer engaged in
these cases has suggested that they were dealt with in a hurried
way
or
that there was any unusual feature
in
the hearing. The
The first instance is
Woollett’s
case.2
1
A
lecture delivered
in
Ueceinbrr,
1954,
printed in
3H
I’uhltc
Adnunistrafron
2
[1954]
1
W.L.R.
1149;
[1955]
1
Q.B.
103.
I
uminwiited on
this
case
111
3
Rule
of
Law.
p.
18.
(1955),
p.
1.
18
Modern
Law
Rfwzew.
p.
165.
571
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