Recent Legal Decisions affecting Public Administration
| Published date | 01 January 1936 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1936.tb02421.x |
| Date | 01 January 1936 |
Notes
RECENT
LEGAL
DECISIONS
AFFECTING
PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION
By
F.
A.
ENEVER,
M.A.,
LL.D,
SYNOPSIS
Compmlsorq
purehus
;
Re-arrangement
of
Ccnmty
Districts;
Porn
Law.
Rad
widsnipg;
compenratiomfot~Pti~
of
BoildinsLio6;
EkcmutYsppplP;
snper-
aLumatlcal
allow^
Gom&Esory
Purchase
A recent case which has aroused considerable interest
is
Mamott
u.
Minister
of
Health
[The Times.
70th October,
1935
;
180
Law
Times,
332
;
QQ
lustice
of
the Peace.
.
_-
_.
--
764
;
&.Law
Jou&&.
379).
The
main
ouestion
for
decision was whether the
Wter
of
Health could cob
a
compulsory
the date of 8e order and
its
confirmation %y the Minister.
&chase order where the pro erty
had
been
13-4
by the
owner
between
If
any
person
aggrieved by
an
order desires
to
question
its
validity
on
the
ground
that
it
is
not within the powers
of
this
Act or
that
any requirement
of
this
Act has not
been
complied with,
he
may,
within
six
weeks after the publicstion
of
the notice
of
confirmation, make
an
application
for
the purpose
to
the
High
Court
and when such application
is
duly made the
Court
.
.
.
(i)
if
satisfied
upon
the hearing
of
the application that the order
is
not
within
the powers
of
this
Act or
that
the interests
of
the applicant have been substantially prejudiced by
any
requirement
of
this
Act not having
been
complied with,
may
quash
the
orda
either generally or in
so
far
as
it
affects
any property of the applicant.
In
pursuance
of
that provision
Mr.
Marriott applied
to
the
Court
to
quash
a
wm-
pulsov purchase order. The
facts
were
that
the applicant owned
27
out
of
39
houses
in
an area which the Nottingham Corporation had declared
to
be
a
clearance
area
and in
respect of which they
had
made
a
compulsory order. The applicant proceeded
to
demolish
his
houses and the demolition was completed not
only
before the Minister
had
konlirmed the order but even before the date
of
the local inquiry which
it
had
become
necessary
to
hold
in
view of objections made.
In
asking the
Court
to quash the compulsory purchase order the applicant relied
on
two
grounds, one being that the
local
inquiry
was void, the
report
based
on
it
was
bad
and
the
purported
confumation
by
the Mimister was
a
nullity,
because evidence tendered
on
behalf
of
the applicant
of
an agreement by
a
Mr. Gibbon for the purchase
from
the
Corporation
of
part of the land included in the order had
been
wrong1
On
this
Score Mr. Justice Swift, relying
on
a decision of the House
of
hrds
in
Local
Government Board
v.
ArIidge
[1915]
A.C.
IZO
to the effect
that
nothing should
be done which offended against natural justice, held
that
in order to have the
effect of vitiating the proceedings there must
be
some impropriety which went to the
root
of
the whole matter. He did not think that there was anything
in
the way in
which the
inquiry
had been conducted which offended
against
natural
justice and
therefore this ground
of
appeal failed.
The other and more important ground
on
which the applicant relied
was
that the
conditions
did not exist under which the Corporation was entitled to
acquire
the land
under the
Housing
Act
in
view
of
the fact that the area had been cleared before the
order
was
confirmed b the Minister, and
on
this point His Lordship held that the
applicant was right. xe did not see how
a
clearance order could
be
ordered after the
land had
in
fact been cleared and pointed out that the confirming order of the
Minister
was
not retrospective.
If
the applicant
had waited, he would have had to deal with it
as
ordered,
but,
as
he did not wait, the
Corporation could not now say that they were entitled
to
buy the land
in
order
to
demolish houses
on
it
which had already been demolished.
Section
11
(3)
of
the Housing Act,
1930,
provides
as
follows:-
rejected.
The land, he
said,
belonged
to
the applicant.
92
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