Human Rights and Administrative Law
Description
Section 1 of the (fictitious) Post-Brexit Passports Act 2021 provides that:
“The Secretary of State has the power to issue British passports to individuals who were born within the United Kingdom. The Secretary of State can decide the fee to be charged for the issuing of a new passport”.
The Secretary of State in the (fictitious) Department for Post-Brexit Britain (DPBB) decides to use this power as a means of reducing the number of applicants for British passports.
To this end, the Secretary of State decides to charge £1500 for the issue of a new passport and introduces a policy to the effect that only those born before 2003 would for the time being be eligible for a passport.
Due to the number of applications received, the Secretary of State delegates all relevant decision-making powers to a group of civil servants in his department.
Raymond, a 45 year old police captain, applies for a passport. His application is rejected. Though Raymond was born in the English village of Holtchester, the civil servant dealing with his application mistakenly believes that Holtchester is in the Republic of Ireland, rejecting the application for that reason.
Outraged at the rejected application, Raymond’s partner, Kevin, decides that he would like to challenge the decision and seeks to bring a case for judicial review on Raymond’s behalf.