Facts: Acting under powers conferred by the Overseas Development and Cooperation Act 1980, the Foreign Secretary sought to provide £195m in aid to the Malaysian Government to support the building of a hydroelectric dam. By any sensible economic assessment (including an official assessment carried out by an auditor), the dam was a “bad buy,” because electricity generation by the dam would be so expensive it would actually lead to increased energy costs for Malaysians.

⇒ The World Development Movement, who campaigns for more and better aid, sought to challenge the decision to award aid to the dam-building project on the grounds that the money could be better spent elsewhere - and indeed, that the funding of the dam would actually cause Malaysians harm. The insistence of the UK Government’s support of the project was no doubt linked to developing diplomatic relations with Malaysia (who were, at the time, also entering into arms contracts with UK firms)

Held: Could the Administrative Court interfere with the decision to award aid even though the statute did not require the Foreign Security to consider cost effectiveness when exercising discretion?

• Yes! The court took a purposeful approach in seeking to uphold the purpose of the Act - which was to provide aid to the world’s poor.
• Because the project was economically unsound, and failed to demonstrate more than marginal benefit for Malaysia, the decision to award aid was deemed unlawful as being contrary to the purpose of the statute conferring powers upon the Foreign Secretary to make aid decisions

⇒ The grant of international aid requires the consideration of political, economic and diplomatic matters. The Administrative Court recognised that these matters are for the Foreign Secretary to take into account as he sees fit—but the court could not tolerate such a ‘bad buy’ that runs counter to the statutory purpose of the 1980 Act to provide aid for the world’s poor.

Facts: The council acquired a large piece of land in 1921 – land which featured matured woodlands and a population of red deer. Acting under s.120 of the Local Government Act, which allows councils to acquire and maintain land for “the benefit, improvement or development of their area,” the council decided to ban deer hunting on the land because hunting is unnecessarily cruel

Held: In judicial review proceedings, the council’s decision to ban hunting was quashed. This was because the council failed to take into account what would be for the “benefit, improvement or development of their area” and were motivated instead by ethical or moral considerations relating to hunting.

⇒ The claim in judicial review survived an appeal to the Court of Appeal

• Bingham made a clear distinction between private persons and public bodies → public bodies may only take into account lawful considerations when exercising their discretion

Facts: The local authority, in pursuit of a statute to provide public conveniences, installed toilets underground and provided for the necessary steps for the public to access these conveniences from both sides of the road. The claimant, who owned a large and valuable property adjacent to the subway, sought relief from the High Court against the installation of these toilets.

⇒ The claimant argued that whilst the local authority had the legal power to install public toilets, the creation of a subway providing access for the public to walk under the road (whether to use the toilets or not) was beyond the lawful powers conferred upon the local authority by statute.

Held: The House of Lords disagreed: they ruled that that the installation of the toilets (and, importantly, the necessary subway to access these toilets) were within the statutory powers conferred upon the local authority

• However, the court must ensure that the official is not acting upon one motive (the lawful one i.e. to install the toilets) “under colour and pretence,” (at 432) whilst pursuing an unlawful motive (the construction of an unwarranted subway)
• Thus, a public body may do something it is not lawfully entitled to do (such as build a subway) if it is merely incidental to the performance of some other, lawful, act (such as to install the toilets)
• This contrasts sharply with World Development Movement where the motive of the Foreign Secretary to secure political and diplomatic relations with Malaysia (not to mention the arms contract!) was not merely incidental to the exercise of discretion in respect of aid – but was in fact the primary motive.