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Introduction

Judicial review allows a person with sufficient interest in a decision or action by a public body to ask a court (normally the High Court) to review the lawfulness of:

1. Ìý

   •ÌýÌýÌýÌý an enactment, or

2. Ìý

   •ÌýÌýÌýÌý a decision, action or failure to act in relation to the exercise of a public function¹

More generally judicial review has been regarded² as appropriate in cases of:

1. Ìý

   •ÌýÌýÌýÌý 'illegality', ie where the decision-maker has not correctly understood the law that regulates his decision-making power and/or has not given effect to that law

2. Ìý

   •ÌýÌýÌýÌý 'irrationality', ie 'Wednesbury³ unreasonableness' – 'a decision which is so outrageous in its defiance of logic or of accepted moral standards that no sensible person who had applied his mind to the question to be decided could have arrived at it'

3. Ìý

   •ÌýÌýÌýÌý 'procedural impropriety', ie failure to observe basic rules of natural justice or failure to act with procedural fairness towards the person who will be affected by the decision

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