Irrationality/Wednesbury Unreasonableness

• What are the Wednesbury principles to show that the courts have not been unreasonable?

  1. Proper direction in law
  2. Take into account relevant factors
  3. Exclude irrelevant factors in
  4. Wednesbury Unreasonableness
• What is the L.P of Wheeler v Leicester City Council? (where a rugby club was banned from using Leicester's recreational grounds because they went to South Africa)

  L.P: the public body will be held to have been unreasonable if they had punished the applicants when they had done nothing wrong

  L.P: “A private individual or a private organisation cannot be obliged to display zeal in the pursuit of an object sought by a public authority and cannot be obliged to publish views dictated by a public authority.”
• What is a disadvantage of Wednesbury Unreasonableness?

  Claims often fail because Wednesbury unreasonableness is so difficult to establish
• What is the first way that a decision may be irrational?

  If it is so unreasonable that no reasonable decision maker could have come to the same decision, also known as 'Wednesbury unreasonableness' (although a less strict test applies if human rights are at stake)
• What is the second way that a decision may be irrational?

  The decision-maker takes into account irrelevant matters or fails to consider relevant matters
• What is the last way that a decision may be irrational?

  If the decision maker acts in bad faith or dishonestly
• What was the other way that Leicester was being unreasonable?

  “The four questions, coupled with the insistence that only affirmative answers to all four would be acceptable, are suggestive of more than powerful persuasion.”
• What is the issue with 'powerful persuasion'?

  Powerful persuasion may cross that line where it moves into the field of illegitimate pressure coupled with the threat of sanctions
• How was the Leicester Council being unfair when asking the four questions to the Rugby club according to the HoL?

  They received reasoned and reasonable answers which went a long way in support of the policy which the council had accepted and desired to see accepted.”
• In Leicester, how was the Council being procedurally unfair? (Procedural Impropriety)

  When the club were presented by the council with four questions it was made clear that the club's response would only be acceptable if they were viewed to be satisfactory to the council
• In Leicester, how did LJ Browne-Wilkinson state that the Council was unreasonable?

  • “It has not been, and could not be, contended that the view adopted by the club was in anyway unlawful or unreasonable: it just differed from the reasonable view held by the council.”
  • “The unlawfulness lies not in the basic views of the council but in their use of their powers so as to punish those who refuse to indorse those views, thereby interfering with the fundamental right of the club and its members to freedom of speech and conscience.”
• Why did LJ Browne-Wilkinson state that Article 10 would be at risk if the courts were in favour of the Leicester Council?

  "The courts' decision in each case cannot be allowed to depend on the courts' opinion of the merits of the views or motives of the public authority. If that were to be the law, the individual's freedom of speech and conscience would be a freedom to speak and act only as judges think right...it must follow that if this decision of the council is lawful all other decisions to penalise those who do not publicly agree with the majority view would also have to be held valid."