The Court was asked whether a claimant was entitled to a pension (a superannuation allowance). It was said that under the relevant legislation he could only get a pension if he had served for a certain number of years. That he had not done. It was said, however, that under one section of the legislation he would be entitled to receive a pension although he had not served for the stated period. There was a provision that in the case of any dispute as to the right of an officer to receive a pension (or as to its amount) such dispute was to be determined by the Secretary of State whose decision was to be final. The dispute was referred by the claimant to the Secretary of State. He decided that the claimant was entitled. One view was that if on a correct interpretation of the law no one could be granted a pension who lacked the requisite years of service, then there could be no dispute which the Minister had jurisdiction to entertain and that consequently the provision as to the finality of his decision would be no bar to an application for certiorari. A rule nisi for a writ of certiorari was discharged by the Divisional Court and an appeal from their decision was dismissed.
Held: The construction of the sections of the legislation came within the jurisdiction of the Minister with the result that even if he made a mistake of law in construing the sections his decision could not be challenged. Certiorari would not lie because if there were any mistakes of law (which the court rather doubted but as to which the court did not have to pronounce) they were mistakes of law within jurisdiction.
Greer LJ said: ‘if the Minister has wrongly construed the section, still he has not acted without jurisdiction, because a mere misconstruction of this section would not entitle the committee to say that the order was made without jurisdiction.’ He referred with approval to the following passage in Halsbury’s Laws of England, 2nd ed. (1933): ‘Where the proceedings are regular upon their face and the magistrates had jurisdiction, the superior court will not grant the writ of certiorari on the ground that the court below has misconceived a point of law. When the court below has jurisdiction to decide a matter, it cannot be deemed to exceed or abuse its jurisdiction, merely because it incidentally misconstrues a statute, or admits illegal evidence, or rejects legal evidence, or misdirects itself as to the weight of the evidence, or convicts without evidence.’
Slesser LJ said that at the highest it could not be said that the Minister had done anything more than to arrive at an erroneous decision.
Greer LJ, Slesser LJ
[1939] 1 KB 232, (1939) 108 LJKB 27
England and Wales
Updated: 20 September 2021; Ref: scu.653280 br>