Abstract
There are some grounds of judicial review which inherently lead the court to consider questions of the quality of the decision-maker’s decision. The most prominent of these are review for Wednesbury unreasonableness and S20/2002 irrationality or illogicality. These grounds of review require careful application to avoid reviewing the merits of a case. The Australian Retailers case demonstrates another difficulty with quality review – that of what detail should be allowed in the evidence both supporting and rebutting the alleged error of law. This article provides a brief examination of the nature of quality review, followed by an examination of the approach used by Weinberg J in Australian Retailers. The article also suggests a method by which judicial review for issues of quality can serve its intended purpose – to catch rare and absurd decisions – without becoming unduly time-consuming or, worse, degenerating into merits review.
Disciplines
Administrative Law
Date of this Version
December 2010
Recommended Citation
Greg Weeks, "Litigating questions of quality" (December 2010). University of New South Wales Faculty of Law Research Series 2010. Working Paper 66.
http://law.bepress.com/unswwps-flrps10/art66
Comments
This paper was published in the Australian Journal of Administrative Law, Vol. 14, No. 2, p. 76, 2007. This paper may also be referenced as [2010] UNSWLRS 66.