Chapter 12 Key facts checklists

Chapter 12 Key facts checklists

Grounds for judicial review: irrationality, proportionality, merits-based, and the Human Rights Act

• Irrationality means unreasonableness which is now linked to the principle of proportionality.

• Unreasonableness is a comprehensively used term capable of meaning that a person given a discretionary power has, among other things, reached a conclusion which is so absurd that no reasonable authority could ever have come to it.

• Proportionality requires that there must be a reasonable relationship between the objective being sought and the means used to achieve it.

• Following the Human Rights Act 1998 the court is concerned with whether the claimant’s Convention rights have been infringed, not with whether the public authority has properly taken them into account.

• Where a public authority measure is challenged by way of judicial review under the Human Rights Act 1998 for being disproportionate, it is sufficient for the authority to show that it had proportionate outcomes rather than that its proportionality was addressed during the decision-making process.

Back to top