scholarly journals The Non-Identical Twins in UK Public Law: Reasonableness and Proportionality

2017 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yossi Nehushtan

Ever since the Wednesbury decision in 1947 (Associated Provincial Picture Houses Ltd v Wednesbury Corporation [1948] 1 KB 223) courts and public law scholars in the United Kingdom (UK) have been struggling to comprehend the meaning of ‘reasonableness’ and its relation to ‘proportionality’. The main purpose of this article is to promote conceptual clarity in UK public law by describing the nature of reasonableness and proportionality as grounds of judicial review and by highlighting the overlooked similarities and differences between them.The main arguments of this article are that: (i) reasonableness is, in essence, an exercise in balancing and weighing; (ii) proportionality adds very little to the existing grounds of judicial review in UK public law; (iii) this addition is not necessarily focused on the administrative weighing and balancing process; and (iv) since proportionality adds very little to the existing grounds of judicial review, there is no conceptual or normative reason to prevent having proportionality as a general ground of judicial review in UK public law.

1995 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 551-564
Author(s):  
Dawn Oliver

First, I want to express my gratitude and sense of honour in being invited to deliver the Lionel Cohen lecture for 1995. The relationship between the Israeli and the British legal systems is a close and mutually beneficial one, and we in Britain in particular owe large debts to the legal community in Israel. This is especially the case in my field, public law, where distinguished academics have enriched our academic literature, notably Justice Zamir, whose work on the declaratory judgment has been so influential. Israeli courts, too, have made major contributions to the development of the common law generally and judicial review very notably.In this lecture I want to discuss the process of constitutional reform in the United Kingdom, and to explore some of the difficulties that lie in the way of reform. Some quite radical reforms to our system of government — the introduction of executive agencies in the British civil service, for instance—have been introduced without resort to legislation. There has been a spate of reform to local government and the National Health Service.


Author(s):  
Thomas E. Webb

Essential Cases: Public Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. This case document summarizes the facts and decision in Pham v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] UKSC 19, Supreme Court. This case considers the introduction of proportionality as a ground of judicial review beyond human rights and European Union law in the United Kingdom. The document also includes supporting commentary from author Thomas Webb.


2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-158
Author(s):  
Yossi Nehushtan

Ever since the Wednesbury decision in 1947, United Kingdom public law has been applying the concepts of ‘rationality’ and ‘reasonableness’ indistinguishably. Rationality has also been used as a ‘mega-ground of judicial review’, covering many other, distinct grounds of review. The main purpose of this article is to promote conceptual clarity in UK public law by highlighting the overlooked differences between reasonableness and rationality, indicating the nature of rationality as a distinct ground of judicial review and explaining why it should not be used as a mega-ground of review. It is argued that (i) reasonableness is in its essence a balancing and weighing test; (ii) the most accurate way of understanding rationality review in public law is to perceive it as ‘instrumental rationality’ or as a ‘suitability test’ which reviews the logical and causal connection between means and end; (iii) this ‘instrumental’ perception of rationality is already applied in UK public law as part of the proportionality test; (iv) rationality, unlike reasonableness, is not a weighing and balancing test; thus it is wrong to use the concepts of ‘reasonableness review’ and ‘rationality review’ indistinguishably; and (v) it is conceptually wrong and confusing to use rationality as a ‘mega-ground of review’.


2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 20-32
Author(s):  
Mirosława Czaplińska ◽  
Małgorzata Rymarzak ◽  
Dariusz Trojanowski

Abstract In the last few years, there has been a visible change in the structure of the fuel station market in both Poland and the United Kingdom. The changes taking place both in the fuel station market structure and the management forms of fuel stations, along with the increasing significance of convenience goods sales, result in the necessity of verifying the existing Polish valuation standards of the income approach. Moreover, there is an urgent need to develop specific fuel station valuation guidelines. Fuel station valuation requires both the specific approach and profits method adjustment to be able to account for the specificity of the valuation. The universal character of property valuation in Poland cannot result in ignoring the specificity of fuel station valuation and the market where it operates. Property valuers undertaking valuations of this type of facilities must be familiar with the rules operating on the fuel station market. This paper focuses on the comparison analysis of the fuel station market structure in Poland and the United Kingdom along with the specificity of the way fuel stations operate. Its emphasis is on the comparison analysis of fuel station valuation methods under Polish and RICS standards in order to show their similarities and differences. The aim of the paper is to present the methods of fuel station valuation in Poland and the United Kingdom, though mainly to show the areas of changes in the Polish valuation standards with regards to the profits method under the income approach that would take into account the specificity of fuel stations and their market.


2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 295-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Weil ◽  
Nicholas Handler

Over the past decade, the United Kingdom has deprived an increasing number of British subjects of their citizenship. This policy, known as “denaturalization,” has been applied with particular harshness in cases where foreign-born subjects have been accused of terrorist activity. The increase is part of a global trend. In recent years, Canada, Australia, France, and the Netherlands have either debated or enacted denaturalization statutes. But Britain remains an outlier among Western democracies. Since 2006, the United Kingdom home secretary has revoked the citizenship of at least 373 Britons, of whom at least 53 have had alleged links to terrorism. This is more than the total number of revocations by Canada, France, Australia, and Netherlands combined. These developments are troubling, as the right to be secure in one's citizenship has been a cornerstone of the postwar European liberal political order, and of the international community's commitment to human rights.


Author(s):  
Steven Gow Calabresi

This concluding chapter identifies the four major causes of the growth and origin of judicial review in the G-20 common law countries and in Israel. First, the need for a federalism umpire, and occasionally a separation of powers umpire, played a major role in the development of judicial review of the constitutionality of legislation in the United States, in Canada, in Australia, in India, and most recently in the United Kingdom. Second, there is a rights from wrongs phenomenon at work in the growth of judicial review in the United States, after the Civil War; in Canada, with the 1982 adoption of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; in India, after the Indira Gandhi State of Emergency led to a massive trampling on human rights; in Israel, after the Holocaust; in South Africa, after racist apartheid misrule; and in the United Kingdom, after that country accumulated an embarrassing record before the European Court of Human Rights prior to 1998. This proves that judicial review of the constitutionality of legislation often occurs in response to a deprivation of human rights. Third, the seven common law countries all borrowed a lot from one another, and from civil law countries, in writing their constitutions. Fourth, and finally, the common law countries all create multiple democratic institutions or political parties, which renders any political attempt to strike back at the Supreme Court impossible to maintain.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Steven Gow Calabresi

This book is about the stunning birth and growth of judicial review in the civil law world, since 1945. In Volume I of this two-volume series, I showed that judicial review was born and grew in common law G-20 constitutional democracies and in Israel primarily: (1) when there is a need for a federalism or a separation of powers umpire, (2) when there is a rights from wrongs dynamic, (3) when there is borrowing, and (4) when the political structure of a country’s institutions leaves space within which the judiciary can operate. The countries discussed in Volume I were the following: (1) the United States, (2) Canada, (3) Australia, (4) India, (5) Israel, (6) South Africa, and (7) the United Kingdom....


Author(s):  
Paul Craig

This chapter draws on the six dimensions of public law covered in the book: theory, institutions and accountability, constitutions and rights, process and procedure, legislation, and case law. It links discussion of these dimensions, by considering how they have been affected by Brexit. The chapter is not concerned with the contending arguments for leaving or remaining in the European Union. The focus is on the way in which Brexit has ‘pressure-tested’ the public law regime in the United Kingdom and the European Union. The six dimensions of public law that are discussed in the preceding chapters form the architectural frame through which the impact of Brexit on the public law regimes is assessed in both the United Kingdom and the European Union.


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