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The Anisminic principle comes from the landmark House of Lords case Anisminic Ltd v Foreign Compensation Commission [1969] 2 AC 147. It’s one of the most important decisions in English administrative law and has strongly influenced Australian law as well.
Background of the case
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Anisminic Ltd was a British company whose assets in Egypt were nationalised during the Suez crisis.
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A statutory scheme was created to compensate those whose property had been taken, and claims were assessed by the Foreign Compensation Commission (FCC).
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The FCC rejected Anisminic’s claim, interpreting the statutory rules in a way that excluded them.
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Crucially, the statute said that determinations of the FCC “shall not be called in question in any court of law.”
The decision
The House of Lords held:
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Even where a statute attempts to oust judicial review (like the “shall not be called in question” clause), the courts can still review jurisdictional errors made by a tribunal or commission.
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If a public authority makes an error of law when exercising its power, then its decision is a nullity – in other words, legally no decision at all.
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Therefore, an ouster clause cannot protect a decision that is not truly a “decision” in law, but instead a void act.
The Anisminic principle
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All errors of law are jurisdictional: if a tribunal misinterprets the law under which it acts, it exceeds its jurisdiction, making its decision void.
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Ouster clauses are read narrowly: a statute cannot prevent the courts from reviewing decisions tainted by legal error.
Importance
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This case effectively collapsed the old distinction between “jurisdictional errors” (reviewable) and “non-jurisdictional errors of law” (not reviewable).
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It established the strong presumption that Parliament cannot wholly exclude judicial review.
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In Australia, the principle influenced cases such as Craig v South Australia (1995) 184 CLR 163 and Kirk v Industrial Court of NSW (2010) 239 CLR 531, where the High Court reinforced that jurisdictional error always remains reviewable, even if legislation tries to say otherwise.
👉 In short: the Anisminic principle means that all legal errors by a decision-maker are treated as going to jurisdiction, so their decision is void and open to review, despite any statutory ouster clause.
Last Updated 5 months ago
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