House Of Lords Law Report, March 14 Before LORD REID, LORD EVERSHED, LORD MORRIS OF BORTH-Y-GEST, LORD HODSON, and LORD DEVLIN Their LORDSHIBPS (Lord Evershed dissent- ing) allowed this appeal by Mr. Charles Field Willia iikidge, ot Uhurch Hill koao. Cheam, Surrey, formerly Chief Constable of Brighton, from the dismissal bv the Court of Appeal (Lord Justice Holroyd Pearce, Lord Justice. Harman. and Lord Justice Davies). (Tihe Times, January 31, 1962; [1962] 2v W.L.R. 716) of his appeal against a judgment of Mr. Justice Streat- feild, dismissing his action against Mr. George Bernard Baldwin and other mem- bers of the Brighton Watch Committee in which he asked for a declaration that their termination on March 7, 1958, of his. appointment as chief constable was illegal. ultra vires and void, and for payment of salary from that date or, alternatively, pay- ment of pension, and damages. The HousE declared that the purported determination by the watch committee of the appellant's appointment was null and void as having been effected contrary to the -principles of natural justice, and ordered that the cause be remitted to the Queen's Bench Division to do as should be just and consistent with their Lordships' decision, it being stated that Mr. Ridge did not now seek reinstatement, but desired only to assert his rights to pension after 33{ years in the police force. At the date of his dis- missal he was aged 58 years and 10 months, and within 14 months of the age at which he would have been entitled to retire volun- tarily with full pension. JUDGE'S REMARKS The appellant was appointed Chief Con- stable of Brighton Police Force in 1956, ,the appointment being subject to the Police Acts and regulations. On October 25. 1957, he was arrested and charged with other persons with conspiracy to obstruct the course of justice, and on October 28 was suspended from duty by the borough watch commrittee. On February 28, 1958, he was acquitted by the jury of the criminal charge against him; but Mr. Justice Donovan, in passing sentence on two police officers who were convicted, said that facts admitted in the course of the trial " establish that neither of you had that professional and moral leadership which both of you should have had and were entitled to exneot from the chief constable ". On March 6, 1958, on a charge alleging corruption against Mr. Ridge. on which no evidence was offered, the judge referred to the Brighton Police Force and remarked on its need for a leader "s.who will be a new influence and who will set a different examDle from that which has lately obtained". After his acquittal, Mr. Ridge applied to be reinstated; but on March 7, 1958, the watch committee decided that he had been negligent in the discharge of his duties as chief constable and, in purported exercise of the powers conferred on them by section 191 (4) of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882. dismissed him from that office. No specific charges were formulated against Mr. Ridge, but the committee, in arriving at their decision, considered, among other things, Mr. Ridge's own statements in evidence at his trial. and the observations of Mr. Justice Donovan on February 28 and March 6. An appeal by Mr. Ridge to the Home Secretary was dismissed. Section 191 (4) of the Municipal Cor- porations Act, 1882, provides that: "The watch committee . . may at any time sus- pend, and . . . dismiss, any borough con- stable whom they think negligent in the disoharge of his duty, or otherwise unfit for the same." Mr. D. J. C. Ackner, Q.C., and Mr. J. L. E. MacManus appeared for the appel- lant; Mr. Neville Faulks, Q.C. (now Mr. Justice Faulks), and Mr. P. A. Harmswortb for the watch committee. JUDGMENT LoRD REID said that the power of dis- ,missal was contained in section 191(4) of the Act of 1882, the only statutorY provi- sion regarding dismissal, and the watch committee purported to act under it. The appellant maintained that the watch com- mittee should have Proceeded under the regulations made under the Police Act, 1919 Assuming for the moment that the watcb committee were right in saying that the regulations did not apply to this case, his Lordship would consider first whether the Act of 1882. taken by itself. authorized them to do as they did. The appellant's case was that in pro- ceeding under that Act the watch committee were bound to observe the principles of natural justice, and before reaching any decision were bound to inform him of the grounds on which they proposed to act and give him a fair opportunity of being heard in his own defence. The authorities on the applicability of the principles of natural justice were in some confusion and it was necessary to examine the matter in some detail. The principle audi alteram partem went back many centuries in our law. appearing in a multitude of judgments of judges of the highest authority. In modern times opinions had sometimes been expressed that natural justice was so vague as to be Practically meaningless. His Lord- ship would regard those as tainted by the perennial fallacy that, because something could not be out and dried or nicely weighed or measured, it did not exist. The idea of negligence was equally insusceptible of exact definition. One reason why the authorities on natural justice had been found difficult to reconcile was that insuffi- cient attention had been paid to the great difference between the various kinds of cases in which it had been sought to apply the principle. What a Minister ought to do in considering objections to a scheme might be very different from what a watch committee ought to do in considering whether to dismiss a chief constable. THREE CLASSES Cases of dismissal fell into three classes -dismissal of a servant by his master; dismissal from an office held during pleasure; and dismissal from an office where there must be something against a man to warrant his dismissal. The Act of 1882 only permitted the watch committee to take action on the grounds of negli- gence or unfitness. So the present case fell into the third class; and there h,is Lordship found an unbroken line of author:ty wholly in favour of the appellant. from Baggs' case in 1615 (11 Co. Rep. 936) to Hogg v. Scott ([1947] KXB. 759) to the effect that an officer could not lawfully be dismissed without first telling him what was alleged against him and hearing his defence or ex- planation.. There were three possible courses open to the committee: reinstating the'appellant as chief constable; dismissing him: or re- quiring him to resign. The difference be- tween the latter two. was, that dismissal inviolved' forfeiture of pension rights. whereas requiring him. to resign did not. Indeed. it was now clear that the appel- lant's' real interest in this appeal was to try to save his pension'rights. It had been submitted that this case was so clear that nothing that the appellan; could have said could have made any difference. It was doubtful whether thai could be an excuse; but even if it could. the committee would fail on the facts. Certainly, as their Lordships knew the facts the watch committee could not have been held to have acted wrongly or wholly un- reasonably if they had in the exercise ot their discretion decided to take the more lenient course of not forfeiting the appel- lant's pension rights. if the present case had arisen 30 or 4C years ago the courts would have had no difficulty in deciding the present issue in favour of the appellant on the authorities, none of which had ever been disapproved or even doubted. Yet the Court of Appeal had decided this issue against the appel- lant on more recent authorities which apparently justified that result. How had that come about ? At least three things appeared to have contributed. First, there had been many cases where it had been sought to apply the principles of natural justice to the wider duties imposed on Ministers and other organs of government by modern legislation, and in which it had been held that those principles had a limited applica- tion. Secondly, those principles had been held to have a limited application in cases arnsing out of wartime legislation. And thirdly, there had been a misunderstanding of the judgment of Lord Justice Atkin in Rex v. Commissioners (119241 1 K.B. 171). (His Lordship left out of account the very peculiar decision of their Lordships' House in Liversidge v. Anderson ([1v- A.C. 206.)) Any decision that the rules of natural justice were excluded from wartime legis- lation should not, in his Lordship's view, be regarded as of any great weight in deal- ing with the present case which was one of the older type, and involved the interpreta- tion of an Act passed long before modem modifications of the principles of natural justice became necessary, and at a time when, as Parliament was well aware. the courts habitually applied the principles of natural justice to provisions like section 191(4) of the Act of 1882. So his Lordship would hold that the power of dismissal in the Act of 1882 could not be exercised until the watch committee had informed the constable of the grounds on which they proposed to proceed, and had given him a proper opportunity to present his case in defence. MEETING OF MARCH 18 Next came the question whether the com- mittee's failure to follow the rules of natural justice on March 7 was made good by a. meeting on March 18. His Lordship did not doubt that if an officer or body realized that it had acted hastily, and recon- sidered the whole matter afresh, after affording to the person affected a proper opportunity to present his case, its later decision would be valid. But here the appellant's solicitor was not fully informed of the charges against him. What was done on that day was a very inadequate substi- tute for full rehearinR. Even so, three members of the committee changed their minds, and it was impossible to say what the decision of the committee would have been if there had been a full hearing after disclosure to the appellant of the whole case against him. His Lordship agreed with those of their Lordships who held that this meeting on March 18 could not affect the result of this appeal. POLICE REGULATIONS The other ground on which some of their Lordships preferred to proceed was the committee's failure to act in accordance with the police regulations. His Lordship agreed with the view of Lord Morris aboul this. The circumstances in which the Act of 1919 was passed and the consequent regulations made showed that they must have been intended to have a very wide application, and there was nothing un- reasonable in applying them to this case. Dismissing a chief constable who had not been convicted of any criminal offence was not a thing to be done lightly. If the whole of the matters against him were dis- closed to him and he refused to admit some or all of them. there should be such inquiry as the regulations required. In particular. to exclude this case from the ambit of the regulations because the committee did not proceed on any report or allegation was a very narrow interpretation of the regu- lations and would lead to a strange result. Counsel for the committee had been con- strained to admit that if some busybody had formally reported to the watch coiu- mittee the observations of Mr. Justice Donovan and required them to deal with those allegations, the watch commitee would have been bound to apply the regu- lations. But it would be absurd if tne substantive rights of the appellant were to depend on whether or not someone hap- pened to have made a formal report or allegation to the committee before they proceeded to deal with the case Then there had been argument whether in the result the committee's decision was void or merely voidable. Time and again in the cases cited it had been stated that a decision given without regard to the principles of natural justice was void. His Lordship saw no reason to doubt it. The body with the power to decide could not lawfully proceed to make a decision until it had afforded to the person affected a proper opportunity to state his case. Finally there was the question whether by appealing to the Secretary of State. whose decision was by statute made final and binding, the appellant was in some way prevented from now asserting the nullity of the committee's decision. That was an attempt to set up estoppel where the essential elements for estoppel were not present. In this case the only operative decision was that of the watch committee, and if it was a nullity, the statement by the Secretary of State that " there was sufficient material on which the watch committee could properly exercise their power of dis- missal under section 191 (4)" could not make it valid. The appeal should be allowed. and the House skould declare that the dismissal of the appellant was null and void and remit the case to the Queen's Bench Division for further procedure. But it was right to put on record that the appellant did not seek to be reinstated as chief constable: his whole concern was to avoid the serious financial consequences involved in dismissal as against being required or allowed to resign. DISSENTING VIEW LoRD EVERSHED, dissenting, said that he did not wish at aU to denigrate the principles of natural justice or their proper invocation in the courts. On the other hand we had here the very wide terms of this Act of Parliament and the body in which was invested this wide discretion was an entirely responsible body. Although his Lordship was ready to assume that the appellant should have been given an opportunity at any rate to put his case for being required to resign rather than being summarily dis- missed, a second question then arose: Was justice done in all the circumstances of 'his case ? His Lordship, having considered the whole matter with the greatest care, concluded that here there was no " real ubstantial miscarriage of justice". There was in the present case no require- -nent that the watch. committee should observe the terms of the Police Discipline 2egulations of 1952 and therefore the juris- diction lay under section 191 (4) of the Act if 1882 with the watch committee. The most that could be said against the committee's decision was that by failing to observe the rules of natural justice it was liable to be challenged and impugned in the courts; but, assuming there was a failure to comply with those rules by omit- ting to give the appeUlant the right to be heard before passing the resolution of March 7, 1958, that failure was afterwards remedied. In other words, having regard to the entirely exceptional circumstances. it could not now be said that there was any real or substantial injustice in what was done by the wvatch committee. And, finally, if in all other respects his Lordship was wrong, the result of invoking the statutory provisions by way of appeal to the Secretary of State involved neces- sarily the result that the Secretary of State's conclusion must be regarded by their Lordships as having finally disposed of all questions between the appellant and the watch committee. If the matter had rested with his Lordship, he would have dismissed the appeal. REGULATIONS DISREGARDED LoRD MoRius, concurring in allowing the appeal, considered the police regulations and section 191 (4), and concluded that inasmuch as the decision of the committee was that the appellant had committed an oflence or offences against the Discipline Cedc, and inasmuch as the decision was arnved at in complete disregard of the regulations, it must be regarded as void and of no effect, for the power to dismiss for an offence was a power that could only be exercised if the procedure of the regulations was set in motion. Being of the view that even if there had been no applicable regulations a decision to dismiss the appellant for neglect of duty ought only to have been taken in the exer- cise of a quasi-judicial function which demanded an observance of the rules of natural justice, his Lordship entertained no doubt that such rules were not observed. LoRD HODSON, also concurring, said that. apart from the application of the Police Act, 1919, and the regulations, the appeal should succeed on the ground that thc appellant was entitled to and did not receive natural justice. In his Lordship's conclusion, whether the Act of 1882 or the regulations were to be considered, the watch committee had in both cases in fail- ing to give a hearing to the appellant acted without jurisdiction. LoRD DEVLIN, also concurring, said that in his view the Police Discipline Regula- tions, 1952, were applicable in this case. and that they were not complied with. The regulations should be read into the Act of 1882, not as a condition Precedent to the power to dismiss but simply as rules that the committee was required to observe. The effect of Article 11 (1) of the regula- tions was to make the power to dismiss con- ditional on the receipt of a report. Where there had been no report at all and no inquiry to substantiate one, the statutory authority to dismiss was never created so that the act of dismissal was a nullity, and therefore no subsequent proceedings before the Secretary of State could bring it to life. The appeal was allowed with costs, and the case was remitted to the Queen's Bench Division. Solicitors.-Messrs. Haslewoods for Messrs. Bosley & Co., Brighton; Messrs. Sharpe, Pritchard & Co. for the Town Clerk. Rriehton. HOUSE OF LORDS MR. RIDGE'S DISMISSAL HELD IN BREACH OF NATURAL JUSTICE RIDGE v. BALDWIN