Rule-making and the Immigration Rules—A Retreat from Law?

Abstract

There is at present growing concern about the widespread use of departmental rules to effect important matters of governmental policy without proper regard to the interests of a parliamentary democracy. One such example of departmental rule-making are the Immigration Rules which were once described by the Court of Appeal as 'a curious amalgam of information and description of executive procedures' and as being 'in a class of their own'. At that time they had not been made the subject of a very detailed legal analysis. In fact, as a