Control of Delegated Legislation by the Courts

Delegated legislation can be challenged in the High Court Queen’s Bench Division. This is known as Judicial Review. The delegated legislation can be declared ultra vires which is Latin for ‘beyond the power’ and the effect of this is to make the delegate legislation void or not effective. There are 3 types.

Procedural ultra vires. This means the minister or department has not followed the procedures set out in the Parent Act.	Aylesbury mushrooms case A training board was introduced for farmers.  The farmers themselves were then asked to pay for it.  This was all right as long as they had been consulted, but it was not all right for some mushroom growers who had not been consulted.  The court decided that they didn’t have to pay.
Substantive ultra vires. This means that the powers given to the person making the delegated legislation in the Parent Act have been exceeded.	Cure and Deeley Case (1962) Finance Act 1940 gave Customs and Excise power to make any law they wanted - charge tax when tax return was submitted late This was wrong as it gave a government department more power than Parliament Fulham Corportation The parent act gave the Council the power to build shared washing facilities for a group of houses. They actually built a launderette which the residents had to pay for. This went beyond the powers given in the parent act and this was Ultra Vires.
Unreasonableness. This means that the delegated legislation made is so unjust that no reasonable body could have made it.	Strictland v Hayes Borough Council It was unreasonable to ban people from using bad language in private when the Parent Act had given councils the power to punish people singing obscene songs generally.  The power should have been limited to public places.