ABSTRACT
With the procedural aspects of judicial review proceedings in mind, attention can now be turned to the grounds on which judicial review may be sought. Two principal classes of action may be pursued: those which allege that there has been a breach of statutory requirements, and those alleging that a decision has been reached in an unreasonable manner or in disregard of the rules of natural justice. These broad headings have traditionally been divided into a number of subheadings. In Council of Civil Service Unions v Minister of State for Civil Service (1985) (the GCHQ case), the House of Lords took the opportunity to offer a rationalisation of the grounds for judicial review and ruled that the bases for judicial review could be subsumed under three principal heads, namely, illegality, irrationality and procedural impropriety. It was accepted that further grounds for review, such as ‘proportionality’ might emerge. Lord Diplock elucidated the concepts:
The court’s attitude to proportionality is discussed later in this chapter, when consideration is given to the Human Rights Act 1998, which incorporates
European Convention rights into domestic law. It is important, however, to acknowledge at this stage that the traditional approach to judicial review – outlined below – is changing markedly, led by the influence of European law under the law of the European Community and by the Convention on Human Rights. Depending particularly on how the law develops under the Human Rights Act 1998, it may well prove that judicial review, as hitherto understood, is undergoing fundamental change.
