The Exhaustion of Alternative Remedies in Administrative Law

Abstract

The application for judicial review is the primary means of challenging the legality of action taken by public bodies. Judicial review is not, however, the only avenue by which an individual may challenge a particular decision. Statute may create an appellate machinery to hear appeals against decisions of public bodies. There is a wide variety in the pattern of such schemes. There may be an appeal from a decision to a tribunal or other body, with a further right of appeal on a point of law or by way of case stated to the High Court or the Court of Appeal. Such mechanisms exist in a number of fields, most importantly in the field of revenue law, enforcement notices in planning law, decisions of inferior courts such as magistrates& courts, and social security law. There may be an appeal from a decision to an administrative tribunal or inferior court but with no right of appeal to the High Court, as in certain immigration cases where decisions may be appealed to an adjudicator and from him to the Immigration Appeal Tribunal. There may be an appeal from decisions to an administrative body such as a Secretary of State either with provision for appeal to the courts, as with appeals against refusals of planning permission by local authorities, or without any further right of appeal, as in the case of appeals against disciplinary decisions of chief constables.