swarb.co.uk - law index
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Natural Justice - From: 1980 To: 1984
This page lists 11 cases, and was prepared on 02 April 2018.
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 Bushell v Secretary of State for the Environment; HL 7-Feb-1980 - [1981] AC 75; [1980] 2 All ER 608; [1980] UKHL 1; [1980] 3 WLR 22; (1980) 144 JP 387; (1980) 78 LGR 269
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Payne v Lord Harris of Greewich [1981] 1 WLR 754
1981
CA
Lord Denning MR, Shaw LJ
Prisons, Natural Justice
A prisoner sought a declaration that he was entitled to be given the reasons for refusing him parole so that he could make representations in rebuttal. Held: The declaration was refused.
Lord Denning MR said: "No doubt it is the duty of all those concerned - from the member of the local review committee, to the Parole Board, to the Secretary of State - to act fairly. That is the simple precept which now governs the administrative procedure of all public bodies. But the duty to act fairly cannot be set down in a series of set propositions. Each case depends on its own circumstances."
Shaw LJ said: "In the well-known case of Reg. v. Gaming Board for Great Britain, Ex partes Benaim and Khaida [1970] 2 QB 417, 430, Lord Denning M.R. said: 'It is not possible to lay down rigid rules as to when the principles of natural justice are to apply: nor as to their scope and extent. Everything depends on the subject matter . . ' In a context in which the public interest may be put at risk by the inopportune release of a prisoner on licence, no constraints or pressures should weigh upon the Parole Board in coming to what must in the end be a decision in which expedience must be an important influence."
Brightman LJ referred to the same passage from Ex parte Benaim and Khaida and said: "The scope and extent of the principles of natural justice depend on the subject matter to which they are sought to be applied."
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 Williams v Home Office (No 2); 2-Jan-1981 - [1981] 1 All ER 1211
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Regina v Secretary of State for the Environment ex parte Norwich City Council [1982] QB 808
1982
CA
Lord Denning MR
Natural Justice
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Regina v Oxford City Justices, ex parte Smith (1982) 75 Cr App R 200
1982
QBD
Lord Lane CJ
Criminal Practice, Road Traffic, Natural Justice
The defendant had given a positive breath test. The laboratory test showed a urine/alcohol proportion above the prescribed limit. He was warned that proceedings were possible. The summons was issued within the six months' period prescribed by the Act, but service was delayed for over two years. He objected that any hearing would be contrary to the rules of natural justice and prejudicial. Held: The delay was inordinate, and due to the police's non-observance or inefficiency or both; it was both unjustified and unnecessary, and of such length as to be unconscionable. It could not be said that he was not prejudiced thereby, and the justices were not justified in exercising any discretion. Accordingly, prohibition was granted to prohibit them from continuing the hearing.
Magistrates' Courts Act 1952
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 Re McCutcheon and City of Toronto; 1983 - (1983) 147 DLR (3d) 193
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 Regina v Liverpool City Justices ex parte Topping; 1983 - [1983] 1 WLR 119
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Regina v Police Complaints Board ex parte Madden and Rhone [1983] 1 WLR 447
1983
McNeill J
Police, Natural Justice
Double jeopardy, properly understood, is best described in the phrase "No man should be tried twice for the same offence". The court emphasised the word "tried".
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 Livesey v New South Wales Bar Association; 20-May-1983 - (1983) 151 CLR 288; (1983) 47 ALR 45; (1983) 57 ALJR 420
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Mahon v Air New Zealand Ltd [1984] AC 808; [1984] 3 All ER 201
1984
PC
Lord Diplock
Natural Justice
There had been an inquiry into a tragic air crash. The appellants said that though identified by the Royal Commissioner (a High Court judge) as being parties to "an orchestrated litany of lies", they had not been given a proper opportunity to answer the criticisms made against them. Held: Giving a defendant a fair opportunity to answer the charges brought against him is fundamental to a fair trial. Lord Diplock said that an investigative decision-maker: "must base his decision upon evidence that has some probative value."
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Regina v East Berkshire Health Authority, ex Parte Walsh [1984] EWCA Civ 6; [1985] QB 152
14 May 1984
CA
Sir John Donaldson MR, May, Purchas LJJ
Employment, Judicial Review, Natural Justice
A district nursing officer had been dismissed for misconduct. He applied for judicial review. He sought judicial review to quash the decision on the ground that there had been a breach of natural justice and that the district nursing officer had no power to dismiss him. Held: A claim for judicial review cannot be used to enforce merely private law rights against a public body. An applicant for judicial review has to show that a public law right enjoyed by him had been infringed and that where the terms of employment by a public body were controlled by statute its employees might have rights both in public and private law to enforce those rights, but that a distinction had to be made between an infringement of statutory provisions giving rise to public law rights and those that arose solely from a breach of the contract of employment.
Purchas LJ described the basic question as being whether the remedies sought by the applicant arose solely out of a private right in contract between him and the authority or upon some breach of the public duty placed upon that authority which related to the exercise of the powers granted by statute to it to engage and dismiss him in the course of providing a national service to the public.
Discussing the case law cited to him, Sir John Donaldson MR said: "None of these three decisions of the House of Lords . . was directly concerned with the scope of judicial review under RSC, Ord 53 . . In all three cases there was a special statutory provision bearing directly upon the right of a public authority to dismiss the plaintiff … As Lord Wilberforce said [in Malloch, at pages 1595-1596], it is the existence of these statutory provisions which injects the element of public law necessary in this context to attract the remedies of administrative law. Employment by a public authority does not per se inject any element of public law. Nor does the fact that the employee is in a 'higher grade' or is an 'officer'. This only makes it more likely that there will be necessary statutory restrictions upon dismissal, or other underpinning of his employment . . It will be this underpinning and not the seniority which injects the element of public law."
May LJ referred to "ordinary" master and servant cases with no element of public law involved and considered that earlier decisions "must now be read in the light of the employment protection legislation": "The concept of natural justice involved in many of the cases is clearly now subsumed in that of an 'unfair dismissal'. To the extent that such cases laid down any principle of law, then of course they must be followed. As always, however, to the extent that they were really decided upon their own facts they provide no precedent for later cases.
Further, I think that at the present time in at least the great majority of cases involving disputes about the dismissal of an employee by his employer, the most appropriate forum for their resolution is an industrial tribunal. In my opinion the courts should not be astute to hold that any particular dispute is appropriate for consideration under the judicial review procedure . . "
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