Administrative Law Assignment
A claim for judicial review can be brought against any body performing public duties. The powers exercised by those pubic bodies may be derived from statute. One can deduct that the SRA is a body performing public duties since its powers derive from the Railways act 1993 and Transport act 2000.Now we must examine the powers it holds and the legality of the arrangements and the decisions it takes.
The SRA has ‘discretion’ that involves making a choice in a decision or taking a course of action. An official body such as that of SRA could do this on purpose or unconsciously which the court may decide is an unlawful decision. The courts may come in where it seems the discretion has not been exercised correctly however; the court will not be able to give its own decision for the decision made by i.e. The SRA.
With this mind we must look at the grounds on which a court may review the exercise of this discretion and whether the SRA is intra vires Rail Passengers Council.
(a)Firstly a public authority’s powers must be exercised consistent with the conferring statute. The exercise of power will be unlawful where the decisions maker takes in to account factors in law which are irrelevant or leaves matters which are relevant. The SRA sets up an advisory committee that will provide recommendations in the process of franchising. The key question is, does the SRA follow the considerations of the committee and take it into account when making decisions? it seems that the SRA does follow the relevant recommendations in awarding the franchise. The SRA must no have taken into account irrelevant considerations, In R v Homesecretary, ex P Venebales, the Home Secretary acted unlawfully in deciding whether it was justified to release from prison two young men who as children were convicted of murder, they took in to account irrelevant matters (public petitions demanded they be imprisoned for life) and refused to take in to account relevant matters like the progress of the detention. In advising the Rail Passengers Council one can say that if the SRA has made choice in awarding the franchise with thought of achieving I.e. personal benefit then it will be declared unlawful by the courts. But saying this, it is not enough to that the considerations have been ignored which could have been taken to account in order to invalidate a decision, rather where a statue says one should consider certain this when coming to a decision and does not and the act expressly or impliedly identifies considerations “required to be taken into account by the authority as a mater of legal obligation” then a decision will be declared invalid as relevant considerations were ignored. In this case in advising the Rail Passengers Council, if the acts which have been mentioned above say clearly that the SRA must take the recommendations of the advisory committee as it is better informed that itself, then this is what it is required to do but if it choose not to follow the advisory committee’s decisions because it believes it made a mistake then the choice will be declared invalid by the courts. Moreover, it is up to the courts to decide whether factors are relevant or irrelevant.
