ABSTRACT
From a judicial review perspective, the Human Rights Act 1998, which incorporates Convention rights into domestic law, presages significant developments.87 The Human Rights Act provides an additional basis on which the legality of actions of public authorities will be tested. The Act provides for judicial review to extend to the review of administrative action to determine its compatibility with Convention requirements. As has been seen above, a fundamental concept utilised in domestic judicial review cases has conventionally been that of ‘reasonableness’.88 At issue is whether a public body, in its exercise of administrative discretion, has acted within the bounds of reasonableness conferred by the legislation, under which are subsumed the concepts of illegality, irrationality and procedural impropriety. Both the European Court of Justice of the European Community and the European Court of Human Rights – which are separate institutions and operate under separate jurisdictions89 – have long employed the concept of ‘proportionality’, and it is this concept – traditionally been regarded with some suspicion by domestic judges – which has now become applicable.90
