has generally enhanced the rule of law in government business and other public entities. Seen from the
above standpoint it is a sufficient tool in causing the body in question to remain accountable.
118. However, it is important to remember that Judicial Review is a special supervisory jurisdiction which is
different from both (1) ordinary (adversarial) litigation between private parties and (2) an appeal (rehearing)
on the merits. The question is not whether the judge disagrees with what the public body has done, but
whether there is some recognisable public law wrong that has been committed. Whereas private law
proceedings involve the claimant asserting rights, judicial review represents the claimant invoking
supervisory jurisdiction of the Court through proceedings brought nominally by the Republic. See R vs.
Traffic Commissioner for North Western Traffic Area ex parte Brake [1996] COD 248.
119. Judicial review is a constitutional supervision of public authorities involving a challenge to the legal and
procedural validity of the decision. It does not allow the court of review to examine the evidence with a view
of forming its own view about the substantial merits of the case. It may be that the tribunal whose decision is
being challenged has done something which it had no lawful authority to do. It may have abused or misused
the authority which it had. It may have departed from procedures which either by statute or at common law
as a matter of fairness it ought to have observed. As regards the decision itself it may be found to be
perverse, or irrational, or grossly disproportionate to what was required. Or the decision may be found to be
erroneous in respect of a legal deficiency, as for example, through the absence of evidence, or through a
failure for any reason to take into account a relevant matter, or through taking into account an irrelevant
matter, or through some misconstruction of the terms of the statutory provision which the decision maker is
required to apply. While the evidence may have to be explored in order to see if the decision is vitiated by
such legal deficiencies, it is perfectly clear that in a case of review, as distinct from an ordinary appeal, the
court may not set about forming its own preferred view of the evidence. See Reid vs. Secretary of State for
Scotland [1999] 2 AC 512.
120. Judicial review, it has been held time and again, is concerned not with private rights or the merits of the
decision being challenged but with the decision making process. Its purpose is to ensure that the individual
is given fair treatment by the authority to which he has been subjected. See R vs. Secretary of State for
Education and Science ex parte Avon County Council (1991) 1 All ER 282, at P. 285.
121. The purpose of judicial review is to ensure that the individual receives fair treatment, and not to ensure that
the authority, after according fair treatment reaches on a matter which it is authorised by law to decide for
itself a conclusion which is correct in the eyes of the court. See Chief Constable of the North Wales Police
vs. Evans (1982) I WLR 1155.
122. With respect to the ground of Wednesbury unreasonableness, it is not mere unreasonableness which would
justify the interference with the decision of an inferior tribunal. It must be noted that unreasonableness is a
subjective test and therefore to base a decision merely on unreasonableness places the Court at the risk of
determination of a matter on merits rather than on the process. In our view, to justify interference the
decision in question must be so grossly unreasonable that no reasonable authority, addressing itself to the
facts and the law would have arrived at such a decision. In other words such a decision must be deemed to
be so outrageous in defiance of logic or acceptable moral standards that no sensible person applying his
mind to the question to be decided would have arrived at it. Therefore, whereas that the Court is entitled to
consider the decision in question with a view to finding whether or not the Wednesbury test of