Procedural impropriety occurs when a decision is made without following the correct legal procedures or without fairness in the decision-making process. For your business, this is a critical ground to challenge decisions by public bodies, as even a substantively reasonable outcome can be overturned if the process was flawed, leading to delays, costs and regulatory uncertainty. It focuses on how a decision was made, not whether it was right, and commonly includes failures such as bias, lack of consultation or denying a fair hearing.\u00a0 This article explains what procedural impropriety is, the key legal principles behind it and how it can be used to challenge proceedings.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Judicial review is a legal mechanism to challenge a decision made by a public body through the court. It challenges the lawfulness of the decision or action rather than the outcome of the decision itself. Therefore, the courts will consider how the decision or action has been considered. For example, your business may want to challenge HMRC’s decision against your tax accounts. Alternatively, you may wish to challenge the decision of a regulatory body such as the Information Commission Office<\/a> (ICO). You can only apply for judicial review if you have exhausted other complaint processes available for that public body. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Judicial review allows the courts to check how a public body exercises its powers on you. It differs from other court proceedings and requires you to comply with a different set of Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) practice directions. Judicial review takes place in the Administrative Court, which is a division of the High Court. To have a claim for judicial review, you need to meet particular criteria, which will form the basis of your claim. Examples of these criteria include illegality or irrationality by the public body. If the decision-making process of the public body\u2019s action was illegal, the court may, for instance, give any of the following remedies:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The court may also decide to award damages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Procedural impropriety is one of the grounds that your business may be able to use to bring a case of judicial review against a public body. You may hear people refer to this ground as unfairness. Procedural impropriety concerns situations where legal procedures are not abided by or where the decision was not fairly made. This second issue is also called a failure to follow the rules of natural justice. Therefore, a public body\u2019s decision could be unfair where: <\/p>\n\n\n\n In terms of bias, the public body could have shown actual bias where they were evidently prejudiced against you. However, they may have instead shown an appearance of bias, which is why the decision was not seen as fair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n Continue reading this article below the form\n <\/i>\n<\/a>\n\n
What is Procedural Impropriety? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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