By Evarist Baimu Nyaga Mawalla - Home

extending he requirement of natural justice namely the duty to act fairly so that itis required of a purely administrative act so also has the modern law a vividsketch of which my noble and learned friend lord Diplock has included in hisspeech extended the range of judicial review in respect of the exercise ofprerogative power. Today, therefore the controlling factor in determinationwhether the exercise of prerogative power is subject to judicial review is not itssource but its subject matter.Subject to these few comments I agree with the speeches delivered by my nobleand learned friends Lord Diplock and Lord Roskill. I am in favour of dismissingthe appeal only because the respondent has established by evidence that theinterest of national security required in her judgment that she should refuse toconsult the unions before issuing her instruction. But for this I would haveallowed the appeal on the procedural ground that the respondent had actedunfairly in failing to consult union or staff before making her decision.LORD DIPLOCK. My Lords, the English law relating to judicial control ofadministrative action has been developed upon a case to case basis which hasvirtually ran formed it over the last three decades. The principles of public lawthat are applicable to the instant case are in my view well established byauthorities that are sufficiently cited in the speech that will be delivered by mynoble and learned friend, Lord Roskill. This obviates the necessity of myduplicating his citations though I should put on record that after reading andrereading Lord Devlin’s speech in Chandler v. Director of public prosecutions(1964) A.C. 763 I have gained no help from it for I find some of his observationsthat are peripheral to what I understand to be the ratio decidendi difficult toreconcile with the actual decision that he felt able to reach and also with oneanotherThe only difficulty which the instant case has presented upon the facts as theyhave been summarized my noble and learned friend Lord Fraser of Tullybeltonand expanded in the judgment of Glidewell J. has been to identify what is in myview the one crucial point of law on which this appeal turns. It never was341