Lord Green MR identified the importance of the administrative stage of a planning decision: ‘the raising of the objections to the order, the consideration of the matters so raised and the representations of the local authority and the objectors – is merely a stage in the process of arriving at an administrative decision. It is a stage which the courts have always said requires a certain method of approach and method of conduct, but it is not a lis inter partes, and for the simple reason that the local authority and the objectors are not parties to anything that resembles litigation. A moment’s thought will show that any such conception of the relationship must be fallacious, because on the substantive matter, viz whether the order should be confirmed or not, there is a third party who is not present, viz the public, and it is the function of the minister to consider the rights and the interests of the public . . It may well be that, on considering the objections, the minister may find that they are reasonable and that the facts alleged in them are true, but, nevertheless, he may decide that he will overrule them. His action in so deciding is a purely administrative action, based on his conceptions as to what public policy demands.’
and ‘[T]he functions of the minister in carrying these provisions into operation are fundamentally administrative . . subject only to the qualification that, at a particular stage and for a particular and limited purpose, there is superimposed on his administrative character a character which is loosely described as ‘quasi-judicial’. The language which has always been construed as giving rise to the obligations, whatever they may be, implied in the words ‘quasi-judicial’ is to be found in the duty to consider the objections . . The administrative character in which he acts reappears at a later stage because, after considering the objections, which may be regarded as the culminating point of his quasi-judicial functions, there follows something which again, in my view, is purely administrative, viz, the decision whether or not to confirm the order. That decision must be an administrative decision, because it is not to be based purely on the view that he forms of the objections, vis-a-vis the desires of the local authority, but is to be guided by his view as to the policy which in the circumstances he ought to pursue . . [O]n the substantive matter, viz, whether the order should be confirmed or not, there is a third party who is not present, viz, the public, and it is the function of the minister to consider the rights and the interests of the public. That by itself shows that it is completely wrong to treat the controversy between objector and local authority as a controversy which covers the whole of the ground. It is in respect of the public interest that the discretion that Parliament has given to the minister comes into operation . . His views on that matter he must, if necessary, defend in Parliament, but he cannot be called on to defend them in the courts.’
Judges:
Lord Green MR
Citations:
[1947] 2 All ER 395
Planning
Updated: 11 May 2022; Ref: scu.447484
