Newcastle Breweries Ltd v The King: 1921

The court was asked to consider the validity of regulation 2B of the Realm Regulations made under section 1 of the 1914 Act.
Held: The presumption against a statute authorising the expropriation of a subject’s property without payment is even stronger in the context of delegated legislation. Absent a clear provision conferring power to make retrospective delegated legislation, the assumption of such a power offends the legality principle.
Salter J said: ‘I do not think that a regulation which takes away the subjects right to a judicial decision , or transfer the adjudication of his claim without his content, from a court of law to named arbitrators, could fairly be held to be a regulation fro securing the public safety and the defence of the realm, or a regulation designed to prevent the successful prosecution of the war being endangered within the meaning of these words in the defence of the realm consolidation Act, 1914’.

Judges:

Salter J

Citations:

[1920] KB 854

Statutes:

Defence of the Realm Consolidation Act 1914 1

Cited by:

CitedSecretary of State for Energy and Climate Change v Friends of The Earth and Others CA 25-Jan-2012
The Secretary had issued a consultation on the payments for solar energy feed-in-tarriffs, with a view to the new rate being brought in in April 2012. As the consultation ended, he proposed to reduce rates from December 2011. He now appealed against . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Constitutional

Updated: 15 May 2022; Ref: scu.450491