Reasonableness V Proportionality in Relation to Administrative Law

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| Reasonableness v Proportionality | | | | Intro The principle of reasonableness has sparked widely differing views throughout the years and many academics believe that it should have been dead and buried long ago. Donson comments that unreasonableness has long been seen as a concept open to developments and manipulation and that its vague and circular definition makes it difficult to argue successfully in many cases but is equally a reason for it being attractive to applicants. It was evident as early as 1975 in writings by Austin how difficult it would be to overturn a decision by way of judicial review on the grounds of lack of reasonableness. He stated that “reasonableness...is only likely to be used in extreme cases where a decision is completely absurd. Such cases are so rare that the test is probably on its death bed...hopefully it will soon meet a timely end and be decently buried never to be resurrected.” Cane states in his book that “the concept of unreasonableness is a flexible one and can be adapted to different types of decisions. In fact whether a decision is unreasonable or not depend ultimately on the courts assessment of the arguments for or against it on the extent to which it can be said to give effect to the polices and purposes in aid of which the decision-making power was given. Hogan and Morgan point out one of the primary weakness with the test of unreasonableness in their book, which I personally agree with. No matter what wording is used to describe or define the test, the fundamental problem remains; to set a reasonable balance between permitting some latitude to a public body invested with a discretionary power and, on the other hand, preventing really abnormal exercises of discretion; and also trying to ensure that this balance does not vary from judge to judge. The Development of Reasonableness Wednesbury
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