Wednesbury Unreasonableness (Administrative Law)

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Introduction¬ Originated in an exceptionally strict sense, the test of Wednesbury unreasonableness (or irrationality) allowed the review and quashing of an administrative action which is “so outrageous in its defiance of logic or accepted moral standards that no sensible person who had applied his mind to the question to be decided could have arrived at it.” Being aware of the court’s limited jurisdiction in intervening an Executive act, Lord Greene MR in the Wednesbury case clearly stated that the court’s concern was still to examine whether the authority had contravened the law by acting in excess of powers which Parliament has confided with them, and the unreasonableness principle can only be used “in a strictly limited class of case”. The stringency of the test can be seen by the fact that it was itself not passed in that case and many subsequent cases. However throughout the century, when more and more cases tend to invoke the Wednesbury principle and especially in many human rights cases, unreasonableness might be the only way that an Executive act is attackable, issues as to whether the strictness of the orthodox approach should be softened arose. The softened approach is commonly named as the “anxious scrutiny approach”, which came from Lord Bridge’s description that if a fundamental human right is put at risk by a decision, “the basis of the decision must surely call of the most anxious scrutiny” . Approach taken in the Given Cases – “Anxious Scrutiny Unreasonableness” In Society for Protection of Harbour , Wednesbury unreasonableness was not a major issue. The CFA mainly dealt with the issue whether the Board had misinterpreted and misapplied a statute governing the protection of the Victoria Harbour. However, near the end of Li CJ’s judgement, he suggested per curiam that there might be a sliding scale of judicial review regarding
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