A prisoner challenged a policy requiring prisoners to be absent when their cells were searched, including when legally privileged correspondence was examined. The House of Lords held that the policy was unlawful because it interfered with the right to legal professional privilege more than was necessary. The speeches are important for the treatment of proportionality and of fundamental rights at common law.

The Supreme Court held that the Upper Tribunal is amenable to judicial review when it refuses permission to appeal from the First-tier Tribunal, but that review should be confined to the criteria for second appeals. The decision sits at the meeting point of the rule of law, the tribunal system created in 2007 and the limits on how much judicial oversight is proportionate.

Entick v Carrington is the foundational case on the rule that the executive may act only with legal authority. The messengers of the King, acting under a warrant of a Secretary of State, broke into the house of Entick and seized his papers. The Court of Common Pleas held that the warrant had no basis in statute or the common law, so the officials were liable in trespass, and it rejected the argument that state necessity justified the search.

Public authorities may owe duties of care when exercising statutory functions.

Acts passed under the Parliament Act 1949 are valid primary legislation.

House of Lords held that local authorities must act reasonably and cannot ignore their fiduciary duty to ratepayers when setting wages, establishing early principles of Wednesbury unreasonableness.

An ouster clause did not exclude judicial review of the Tribunal for error of law.

Prisoners whose cases were decided by the Parole Board without an oral hearing challenged the Board's approach. The Supreme Court held that common law procedural fairness, informed by article 5(4) of the European Convention, requires an oral hearing where facts are in dispute, where the prisoner's explanation is important or where a hearing would add value. It is a leading case on common law constitutionalism.

A new Labour administration at the Greater London Council cut London Transport fares and paid for it with a supplementary rate on the boroughs. The House of Lords held this unlawful because the Transport (London) Act 1969 required economic transport services and because the council owed a fiduciary duty to ratepayers. A manifesto commitment could not override the statutory duty.

Employment tribunal fees were unlawful because they obstructed access to justice.

Prerogative powers are reviewable in principle, but national security defeated the claim.

Constitutional statutes are not impliedly repealed; metric martyrs lost.

During the First World War the Crown took over a London hotel for the Royal Flying Corps, offering rent, while the owners claimed compensation under a statute. The House of Lords held that where a statute covers the ground previously occupied by the prerogative, the prerogative is displaced for as long as the statute applies, so the Crown had to proceed under the Act. It is the leading authority on the relationship between statute and prerogative.

Landowners relied on a provision in a 1919 Act that stated that inconsistent provisions in later Acts would have no effect, but a later housing statute provided a different method of compensation. The Court of Appeal held that the later Act prevailed, since Parliament cannot bind itself as to the form of future legislation. It is the classic authority for the doctrine of implied repeal.

The prerogative cannot be used to frustrate the purpose of a statutory scheme.

A cinema company challenged a local authority condition forbidding children under fifteen at Sunday performances. The Court of Appeal dismissed the challenge and set out the limits of review for unreasonableness. The court may interfere only if the authority took account of irrelevant matters, ignored relevant ones, or reached a decision so unreasonable that no reasonable authority could have reached it.

Asylum seekers facing removal to Germany as a safe third country relied on a Home Office policy concerning applicants with family members in the United Kingdom. The Court of Appeal held they could not benefit from it, but Laws LJ used the case to set out an influential account of substantive legitimate expectation as resting on good administration, with departure from a promise or practice justified only where it is a proportionate response to a legitimate public interest.

The test for apparent bias is a real possibility, judged by a fair-minded observer.

The two-child limit on benefits was held compatible with Convention rights.

A Muslim pupil was refused permission to wear a jilbab at a school whose uniform policy allowed a shalwar kameez and headscarf. The House of Lords held that her Article 9 and Article 2 of Protocol 1 rights were not infringed, and that any interference was justified. It also rejected the Court of Appeal's emphasis on the school's decision-making process.

A public authority may adopt a policy but must listen to arguments for an exception.

Hansard may be consulted to interpret ambiguous legislation if ministerial statements are clear.

Section 3 of the Human Rights Act allows words to be read to avoid incompatibility.

The Attorney General could not override a court's disclosure order by certificate merely by disagreeing.

Parliamentary privilege did not bar prosecution of MPs and a peer for false expenses claims.

Challenges to the HS2 decision failed; the court commented on constitutional statutes and EU law.