By Evarist Baimu Nyaga Mawalla - Home

Administered by inferior tribunals and statutory bodies. And the other school of thoughtconsists of conservatives who have taken a more cautious and reluctant line in theiranxiety not to seem to encroach or to assume an appellate function which they have notgot. However since the decision of the House of Lords in Anisminic Ltd. Vs. ForeignCompensation Commission the number of conservatives is dwindling fast in manycommon law countries.In that case Lord Reid propounded the sentiments which represent the first school ofthought which hereinafter I shall refer to as the broad approach. he said at p. 170:Statutory provisions which seek to limit the ordinary jurisdiction of the court havea long history. No case has been cited in which any other form of word limiting thejurisdiction of the court has been held to protect a nullity.If the draughtsman or parliament had intended to introduce a new kind of ouster clauseso as to prevent any inquiry even as to whether the document relied on was a forgery, Iwould have expected to find something much more specific than the bald statement tofind something much more specific than the bald statement that a determination shall notbe called in question in any court of law. Undoubtedly such a provision protects everydetermination, which is not a nullity. But I do not think that it is necessary or evenreasonable to construe the word determination as including everything which purports tobe a determination but which is in fact no determination at all. And there are no degreesof nullity. There are a number of reasons why the law will hold a purported decision to bea nullity. I do not see how it could be said that such a provision protects some kinds ofnullity but not others: if that were intended it would be easy to say so.”I share those views and adopt them for the purpose of this case. Thus it was said in thatcase that there were many instances where although the tribunal had jurisdiction to enteron the inquiry, it may have failed to do something in the course of the inquiry which is ofsuch a nature that its decision is a nullity.It may have given its decision in bad faith. It may have made a decision which it had nopower to make. It may have failed in the course of the inquiry to comply with therequirements of natural justice. It may in perfect good faith have misconstrued theprovisions giving it power to act.It may have refused to take into account something which it was required to may haverefused to take into account something which it was required to take into account. That isnot an exhaustive list and recently the House of Lords in the case of C.C.S.U. vs.Minister for the Civil Service devised a new nomenclature for the ground upon whichadministrative actions can be subject to judicial review despite the ouster clause. In thatcase lord Roskil commenting of the judgment of Lord Diplock said:“My noble and learned friend Lord Diplock in his speech has devised a newnomenclature for each of these three grounds. Calling them respectively illegality,119