CPL Seminar: 'Public Law Wrongs'

Speakers: Dr Leah Trueblood and Dr Taylor Koles, University of Surrey

Suppose that a public body has made a serious mistake in exercising, or failing to exercise, its lawful authority. By definition, this does not qualify as unlawful for the purposes of judicial review, so a citizen who is harmed by the mistake can’t use this public law process to secure redress. Such a mistake may well also not amount to a private law wrong, either with respect to the tort of negligence or misfeasance in public office. This paper picks up the thread here, offering a new theory of public law wrongs to explain this gap in the law and proposes structural reforms to the institutions of public law to address it. We argue that these wrongs must be recognised and addressed if public law is to respond adequately to failures that undermine the justification for the exercise of public power.

Join: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/322510909308793?p=TErVTsnbemwdK87J7U