7.2 Judicial Control over Administrative Discretion

The controls' architecture (four layers): The political and structural: the minister's answer; the hierarchy's review; the internal audit; The constitutional: the rights' respect (the discretion within the fundamental rights); the equality discipline (the non-arbitrariness command); The judicial: the review's grounds (the core below); The ombudsman's softer watch (Unit 8): the maladministration's investigation — the discretionary unfairness reviewed without annulment. The judicial review's grounds (the exam's centrepiece — learn the menu): Ground The defect The classic illustration Illegality The power beyond or against its grant; the error of law; the unauthorized purpose The licence refused for a purpose the statute never authorized Irrationality The decision no reasonable authority could reach; the irrelevant considerations; the bad faith The penalty wildly disproportionate; the refusal on the ground of personal enmity Ground The defect The classic illustration Procedural impropriety The natural-justice breach; the required procedure's skip The licence cancelled without hearing (Unit 5) Fettering The discretion's self-surrender — the rigid policy strangling the case-by-case judgment "We never grant licences to that category" Non-exercise The abdication; the inaction; the refusal to decide The application pending years — the duty-to-decide The abuse's catalogue (the grounds' cousins): the improper purpose; the irrelevant considerations; the bad faith; the discrimination; the absurdity — each an irrationality's species. The failure's catalogue: the abdication (the power surrendered to another); the policy's…