Chapter 6 Notes on key cases

Reasons: process and substance

Ridge v Baldwin [1964] AC 40: see above, Chapter 4. One of Ridge’s complaints was that the police authority did not give proper reasons for dismissing him; it only stated a general finding of ‘negligence’, without saying what the negligence was. The House of Lords held that there would be no duty to give reasons, if the police authority could dismiss Ridge at will. But since they could only dismiss him on grounds of negligence or fitness, they had a legal duty to explain their grounds. It was a landmark in requiring reasons for certain sorts of decision; the Law Lords did not fully explain which sorts of decisions require reasons.
R v Minister of Agriculture ex p Padfield [1968] AC 997: Milk producers sought judicial review of the Minister’s refusal to exercise his power to direct an investigative committee to be set up to examine complaints. The House of Lords found that the refusal frustrated the policy of the relevant statute and ordered re-consideration of the matter by the Minister. As regards reasons; if all prima facie reasons point towards one course of action and the Minister takes another without giving a reason, the Court may infer he has no good reason for the decision and is using his discretion for an improper purpose.
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). There was no right to reasons in an application case (in the absence of anything suggesting any impropriety) as the decision need not be based on a case against the applicant.
Save Britain's Heritage v Number 1 Poultry Ltd [1991] 1 WLR 153: An objector to a redevelopment project sought a review of the Secretary of State’s approval decision on the grounds of inadequate reasons. The House of Lords found there to be no flaw in the decision-making process. The burden of proof was on the applicant to show he had been substantially prejudiced by the inadequacy of the reasons, by demonstrating that the lack of reasons raised substantial doubts over the decision-making process. The House of Lords warned against excessive legalism distorting the duty to give reasons.
R v Civil Service Appeal Board (CSAB) ex p Cunningham [1992] ICR 816: The CSAB found the applicant to have been unfairly dismissed as a prison officer. The Board’s assessment of compensation, for which no reasons were given, entitled the applicant to less than half of what he would have received from an employment (industrial) tribunal (to which he, as a prison officer, could not appeal). The Court of Appeal found that natural justice required the Board to give reasons for their decision, since the Board carried out a judicial function from which there was no appeal and reasons were necessary so that the Board’s decision could be judged lawful or unlawful. In R v Higher Education Funding Council ex p Institute of Dental Surgery [1994] 1 WLR 242, (below) Sedley J gave this as an example of a ‘trigger factor’ case (at 261).
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 and his reasoning must be disclosed, including reasons for any departure from the judicially recommended tariff. Giving reasons will enable the prisoner to make an effective application for judicial review, if appropriate.
R v Higher Education Funding Council ex p Institute of Dental Surgery [1994] 1 WLR 242: Grants to educational institutions were based on an assessment of their research quality by the Funding Council. A college applied for judicial review of their assessment, contending the council acted unfairly in giving no reasons for its rating. The Court found no ground for requiring the council to give reasons. Sedley J considered the advantages and drawbacks of a duty to give reasons. He distinguished between cases where the nature and impact of the decision itself call for reasons as a routine aspect of procedural fairness, and other cases where some trigger factor is required to show that, in the circumstances of the particular decision, fairness demands reasons. This case fell into the latter category, but the rating was not so aberrant in itself to call for an explanation.
R v Home Secretary ex p Venables and Thompson [1998] AC 407: Sentenced for murder to detention (under statute) during Her Majesty’s pleasure, Venables and Thompson were given a tariff of 15 years by the Secretary of State. The House of Lords upheld the quashing of these tariff decisions: the detention of a young offender during Her Majesty’s pleasure was not to be equated to the mandatory life sentence served by adults, since the legislation in the former case required the Secretary of State to keep the young offender’s detention under continuous review. Thus, both the general policy of setting a ‘tariff’, and the particular decision of 15 years, were unlawful. Furthermore, in fixing a tariff period, the taking into account of the media clamour concerning the case was procedurally unfair, and led to an irrelevant consideration being taken into account i.e. the public opinion in favour of a long tariff.
R v Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration ex parte Balchin (No 2) (2000) 79 P & CR 157: Owners of land blighted by a County Council’s road order complained to the Ombudsman that the Department of Transport should have done something to pressure the Council to compensate them. They sought judicial review of a second report of the Parliamentary Ombudsman that found no maladministration. The Court quashed the report. Dyson J said that a reasons challenge would succeed wherever there had been a failure to give reasons for findings on a ‘principal controversial issue’. The state of knowledge of the Department was such an issue and the Ombudsman had only cited unspecific evidence for his disputed conclusion that the Department was aware of Council powers to purchase blighted land. Also, the Ombudsman’s failure to mention the applicant’s sense of outrage indicated that, as regards his finding of no injustice, the reasons given would not withstand scrutiny. The case makes an extraordinarily demanding requirement of reasons, based on the extraordinary decision in the first Balchin case, R v Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration, ex parte Balchin [1998] 1 P.L.R. 1, [1997] J.P.L. 917, that it is for judges to determine the relevance of any fact to an Ombudsman’s report (see p 271).
English v Emery Reinbold & Strick Ltd [2002] EWCA Civ 605: Three conjoined appeals on the ground that a High Court judge had not given adequate reasons for decision. Two cases concerned reasons for the judge’s decision to accept expert evidence adverse to the appellants; one concerned a decision not to award costs to the appellant. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeals and gave guidance as to the giving of reasons in the High Court. A decision will be overturned if a disadvantaged party is not able to understand why they have lost their case, or if (because of an inadequacy in the reasons) the Court of Appeal is not able to decide whether there is ground for appeal. But mere defects in the provision of reasons will not be ground for overturning a decision unless they result in such a problem, and in some judicial decisions, fairness does not require reasons at all. The Court of Appeal emphasized the similarity between the requirement of reasons in the common law and the requirement developed in the Strasbourg jurisprudence, based on Art 6 of the Convention. It is noteworthy that the reasons requirement imposed on High Court judges in English is more flexible and less demanding than that imposed on ombudsmen in Balchin.
R (Wooder) v Feggetter [2002] EWCA Civ 554: A second doctor agreed with a first (as required by the applicable legislation) that a patient should be given an anti-psychotic drug against his will. The patient sought judicial review; he contended he ought to have been told the reasons for the second doctor’s decision. The Court of Appeal held that reasons ought to be given. There is a class of case which concern interests so highly regarded by the law (such as personal liberty) that fairness requires reasons are to be given as of right. This case was in that class, although there would be no duty where the giving of reasons would be likely to cause serious harm to health. Sedley LJ indicated that the same duty to give reasons could be seen to flow from the protection of personal autonomy in Article 8 of the ECHR.
R (Begum) v Denbigh High School [2006] UKHL 15: The applicant sought judicial review of the decision of her school not to admit her wearing a jilbab. She claimed inter alia a violation of Article 9 of the Convention (right to manifest one’s religion/belief). The Court of Appeal found that the applicant had been unlawfully excluded because the school had not followed the correct decision-making process: it ought to have reasoned that her freedom of religion was at stake and considered whether there were interests justifying a restriction. The House of Lords dismissed the Article 9 claim. First, there had been no interference with the right to manifest one’s religion at all. Secondly, the Court of Appeal’s approach was mistaken: the focus under the Convention was whether rights had been violated, not whether a decision/act was made by a defective decision-making process. Thirdly, even if there had been an interference with the applicant’s right to manifest her religion, there had been no violation of Article 9.