Nicholas Dobson examines the courts' approach to rationality and public authority decision making
The concept of reasonableness (or the proper and rational exercise of public law discretion) is hard-wired into the operating systems of all public authority lawyers. And recent case law has illustrated how this principle—highlighted in the dark autumn days of 1947 in a famous cinema licensing case—has contemporary resonance (see Associated Provincial Picture Houses Ltd v Wednesbury Corporation [1948] 1 KB 223, [1947] 2 All ER 680). Both the former secretary of state for work and pensions and the mayor of were recently found to have fallen down the unreasonableness grid when their decisions were overturned as irrational.
Bradley Case
On 7 February 2008 the Court of Appeal found that the decision on 16 March 2006 of the secretary of state for work and pensions to reject a finding of maladministration by the parliamentary ombudsman was irrational (see R (Bradley and others) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2008] EWCA Civ 36, [2008]
