Legitimate expectations revisited by Charles Brasted & Julia Marlow
The recent judgment of the Court of Appeal in R (Bhatt Murphy and others) v Independent Assessor and R (Niazi and others) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2008] All ER (D) 127 (Jul) considers again—for the eleventh time in the Court of Appeal since the seminal case of ex parte Coughlan [2001] Q.B. 213—the doctrine of legitimate expectation.
Despite the attentions lavished upon it by the court, this doctrine remains more than a little uncertain in its scope and application. In his judgment, Lord Justice Laws suggested that the doctrine might be given “sharper edges” by determining, among other things, the conditions that give rise to an enforceable substantive legitimate expectation. This article considers how much sharper those edges now are.
The doctrine of legitimate expectation has emerged over recent years as a feature of a public authority's duty of fairness; it dictates that a public authority that adopts a policy or gives an assurance (either expressly or through conduct) should, in certain circumstances, be required to act in accordance with that policy or assurance
