• Cooper v Board of Works (1863) 14 CB (NS) 180 Cooper sued the Board of Works in the tort of trespass to property, for demolishing his house.  The Board argued the demolition was authorised by statute, Cooper by admission having given only five (and not the required seven) days notice before starting the building.  The Court held the demolition was unlawful because the Board had not given Cooper a hearing. No one is to be deprived of property by an administrative authority, without an opportunity of being heard.
• Ridge v Baldwin [1964] AC 40: Following acquittal in a trial on corruption charges in which the judge criticised him, a Chief of Police (Ridge) was sacked without a hearing.  After reconsideration by the Police Authority and an unsuccessful appeal to the Home Secretary, Ridge brought an action for a declaration that the dismissal was unlawful.  The House of Lords granted the declaration.  In cases of dismissal on grounds of neglect of duty, a hearing was required. Neither the reconsideration nor the appeal to the Home Secretary cured the original defect in the decision, as both failed to give Ridge an opportunity to contest the material on which the decision was based.  In any event, the original decision was a nullity, so that it could not be rendered valid by the appeal to the Home Secretary, nor did this appeal exclude recourse to the courts.    Lord Reid dismissed the Police Authority’s claim that because it was implementing a policy, the principles of natural justice did not apply.
• R v Home Secretary, ex p Doody [1994] 1 AC 531: Mandatory life sentence prisoners sought judicial review, on grounds of procedural unfairness, of the Home Secretary’s decision in setting the ‘tariff’ period they must serve before being considered for parole.  The House of Lords quashed the tariff decisions.  The Home Secretary must afford prisoners the opportunity of making written representations before he sets the tariff. He must inform them of the factors to be taken into account, including the judicially recommended tariff.  His reasoning must be disclosed, including reasons for any departure from the judge’s recommendation.  Lord Mustill considers the principles governing the duty of procedural fairness: their flexible nature, their dependence on context and the recent trend towards greater openness in administrative decision-making.
• Begum v Tower Hamlets LBC [2003] UKHL 5: Begum was homeless, and the Council offered her accommodation which she said was unacceptable. The Council’s rehousing manager conducted a review and decided that Begum should have accepted the flat. Begum appealed on the ground that she had not had a hearing before an independent tribunal, because the rehousing manager was not independent. The House of Lords held that the housing allocation decision was a ‘determination of civil rights’, so that Art 6 of the Convention applied. But they held that she had had a fair hearing before an independent tribunal, even though the rehousing manager was not independent. The whole review procedure (the reviewing officer's decision plus an appeal to the County Court (an independent tribunal) on a point of law) provided the protections required by Art 6. Where administrative decisions determine civil rights, Article 6 does not necessarilyrequire an independent tribunal to make the determination in the first instance; Art 6 is fulfilled so long as adequate fairness safeguards are in place, and there is ultimate control of the determination by a court with adequate jurisdiction according to the nature of the case.
• R (Roberts) v Parole Board [2005] UKHL 45: Roberts, a convicted murderer eligible for release on licence, brought a process challenge against the Parole Board and the special advocate scheme it had employed in a ‘closed’ parole hearing in order to determine whether his detention was still necessary.  The House of Lords found that the invention of the scheme was within the powers of the Parole Board.  If the Parole Board could lawfully withhold evidence from the prisoner, a special advocate scheme could only enhance the rights of the prisoner.  The dissenting minority considered that the access of the prisoner to an adversarial hearing could not be detracted from unless explicitly authorised by statute.
• R (Smith and West) v Parole Board [2005] UKHL 1:The Parole Board recommended the return to jail of two prisoners released on licence.  The prisoners sought judicial review of this decision first on the grounds of procedural impropriety, in that the Board had reached its decision without affording them an oral hearing, and secondly on the grounds of violation of Articles 5 and 6 of the Convention.  The House of Lords decided in favour of the prisoners.  The duty to give an oral hearing was wider than the Parole Board had thought, even though it depended on the circumstances.  In revoking parole, the decision-maker ought to be predisposed in favour of an oral hearing.  The Convention point was not upheld. 
• Bank Mellat v HM Treasury (No 2) [2013] UKSC 39: The Treasury had imposed financial restriction orders under the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008, preventing UK financial institutions from dealing with Bank Mellat. The Treasury imposed the orders without notifying the Bank beforehand or giving them a hearing as to whether the orders should be imposed. The Supreme Court held, 5–4, that the orders were unlawful because they were incompatible with Art 1 of the first Protocol to the European Convention (guaranteeing peaceful enjoyment of possessions), and also that the common law of procedural fairness required the Treasury to consult the Bank before imposing the measures.

• Osborn v Parole Board [2013] UKSC 61: the Supreme Court held that the Parole Board, in deciding whether to grant parole to a prisoner, or whether to recall an offender to prison from parole, must give an oral hearing whenever fairness requires it. The Court gave guidance on when fairness would require a hearing (including whenever important facts were in dispute), and concluded that the Board should give an oral hearing if it is in doubt whether to do so [2]. The Court insisted that the role of the court in the law of due process is not merely to decide whether the defendant made reasonable decisions about its procedures, but to ‘determine for itself whether a fair procedure was followed’ (Lord Reed, [65]), and (2). The Osborn decision has had a major impact on the parole process: the Parole Board concluded that ‘The judgment fundamentally changes the way the Parole Board must view the concept of an oral hearing and significantly broadens the circumstances in which the law requires it to hold one’, and identified the following as the most important points:

• ‘the board’s policy and practice in respect of oral hearings has had to change
• there will now have to be many more oral hearings than in the past
• a prisoner who wishes to have an oral hearing is likely to be able to argue that his case falls within the illustrations or comments in the judgment
• if in any doubt, the board should hold an oral hearing
• fairness to the prisoner in the individual case before the board is the overriding factor
• the board can no longer decline an oral hearing merely because it’s unlikely to make any difference
• the board must not be tempted to refuse an oral hearing in order to save time, trouble or expense’

(https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/parole-review-changes-in-reponse-to-the-osborn-judgment)

Further cases

• B Johnson & Co v Minister of Health [1947] 2 All ER 395: Owners of land subject to a compulsory purchase order brought a procedural challenge against the decision of the relevant Minister to confirm the order.  They argued that the Minister ought to have disclosed to them correspondence from the local authority received prior to his consideration of their objections to the order.  The Court of Appeal found there to be no breach of the duty to act fairly: until the Minister embarked on his quasi-judicial function of considering objections to the proposed order, he was acting administratively and thus was under no legal duty to act fairly and to refrain from hearing one party in the absence of the other.  The case is a classic example of the attitude of the courts towards due process before Ridge v Baldwin [1964] AC 40 and its successors.
• Nakkuda Ali v Jayaratne [1951] AC 66 (PC): A textile dealer argued that the decision by the Ceylon Controller of Textiles to revoke his textile licence should be quashed because inter alia the Controller had failed to observe the principles of natural justice.  The Privy Council held that although a quashing order (certiorari) could lie against the Controller, it did not do so here, since he was not acting judicially.  In any event, had the Controller been acting judicially, there had been no breach of the principles of natural justice.
• In re HK (an infant) [1967] 2 Q.B. 617: The applicant sought to quash the chief immigration officer’s decision to send his son back to Pakistan, on the grounds of breach of the rules of natural justice.  The Court of Appeal held that even if the immigration officer was not acting in a judicial or quasi-judicial capacity, the rules of natural justice applied.  The officer must give the immigrant the opportunity of satisfying him of the necessary matters (that he was under 16), and he must let the immigrant know of his impression so that the immigrant can disabuse him of it.  On the facts, there had been no breach of the duty to act fairly.
• McInnes v Onslow-Fane [1978] 1 WLR 1520: The Court of Appeal found that the British Boxing Board of Control were under no obligation to give an applicant even the gist of their reasons for refusing his application for a boxing manager’s licence, nor to give any preliminary indication of those reasons, nor to give him an oral hearing.  Megarry V-C distinguishes three types of case for the purpose of natural justice requirements (forfeiture cases, application cases, legitimate expectation cases).  He discusses the relationship between the terms ‘fairness’ and ‘natural justice’.  Finally, he warns against these concepts discrediting themselves by imposing unreasonable burdens on decision-makers.
• Lloyd v McMahon [1987] 1 AC 625: An auditor made a determination that councillors should reimburse Liverpool Council for a loss of over £100,000 caused by their misconduct (delay in setting a rate).  The councillors claimed the auditor’s failure to offer them an oral hearing made his determination a nullity.  The House of Lords held that an oral hearing was unnecessary.  Though the courts will readily imply into a statute additional procedural safeguards to secure fairness, what fairness requires depends on the character of the decision-making body, the kind of decision it has to make and the statutory or other framework (Lord Bridge).  Given that the councillors had not requested an oral hearing and had made full written representations to the auditor, which would not be supplemented in any material respects by an oral hearing, the auditor had not acted unlawfully in not affording an oral hearing.
• R (Thompson) v Law Society [2004] EWCA Civ 167: A solicitor sought judicial review of two Law Society decisions made in response to complaints by former clients.  He argued, inter alia, that the failure to afford him an oral hearing infringed the rules of procedural fairness.  The Court of Appeal found that the Law Society could proceed without giving the solicitor an oral hearing unless the disputed issues could not be fairly resolved without an oral hearing.  That would be the case where there is a disputed issue of fact central to the assessment which cannot be fairly resolved without hearing oral evidence.  On this test, an oral hearing was not necessary in either case.  Indeed, in the first case, the solicitor had not requested an oral hearing, and a solicitor who did not ask for an oral hearing could not ordinarily complain that none was given. The solicitor also advanced certain Convention arguments which did not succeed.
• R v Home Secretary ex p Dudson [2005] UKHL 52: In a transitional scheme, the Lord Chief Justice reviewed the tariff decisions of young offenders convicted of murder.  Dudson claimed that the recommendation of the Lord Chief Justice was unlawful; Article 6(1) ECHR gave him a right to an oral hearing (a fair and public hearing on a criminal charge) and the Lord Chief Justice decided the matter on written representations.   The House of Lords held that after Dudson’s original trial (which satisfied Article 6(1)), he must be dealt with fairly, but the application of Article 6(1) to proceedings other than at first instance depends on the special features of the proceedings in question.  Article 6 does not require an oral hearing at every stage.  Account must be taken of the entirety of proceedings, of the person conducting the proceedings in question, the nature of the system and the scope of the powers being exercised.  The question is whether the issues at the relevant stage could properly, as a matter of fair trial, be determined without hearing the applicant orally.  It is also relevant that the Lord Chief Justice was under an obligation to carry out the exercise in a reasonable time.  In this case, an oral hearing was not required to allow the Lord Chief Justice to carry out his review.