R (Daly) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2001]...

Facts

• Mr. Daly, a prisoner, challenged a prison policy requiring inmates to be absent during cell searches, including the search of legally privileged correspondence.
• He argued that this policy infringed upon his common law right to confidentiality in legally privileged communications.
• The House of Lords considered whether the policy unlawfully interfered with Mr. Daly's rights.

Issues

1. Whether the prison policy requiring absence of inmates during cell searches, particularly of legally privileged correspondence, infringed the right to confidential legal communications.
2. Whether the standard of review should be the traditional Wednesbury unreasonableness test or the more structured proportionality test derived from European human rights law.
3. Whether proportionality offers a more rigorous and appropriate standard of review for cases involving fundamental rights than Wednesbury unreasonableness.

Decision

• The House of Lords held that the prison policy unduly interfered with the right to confidential legal correspondence.
• The Court endorsed proportionality as a more intensive and structured standard of review than Wednesbury unreasonableness in the context of fundamental rights.
• The challenge succeeded, establishing new principles for the application of proportionality in judicial review involving human rights.

Legal Principles

• Proportionality involves a structured test: (1) the objective must be sufficiently important to justify limiting a fundamental right; (2) the measures adopted must be rationally connected to the objective; (3) the means must be no more than necessary; (4) there must be a fair balance between individual rights and community interests.
• Proportionality provides greater judicial scrutiny than Wednesbury unreasonableness by requiring necessity and balancing of competing interests.
• The intensity of review under proportionality may vary according to context, the nature of the right involved, and the knowledge of the decision-maker.

Conclusion

R (Daly) v Secretary of State for the Home Department marked a significant shift in UK administrative law by confirming proportionality as the leading standard of review for human rights cases, providing a structured and rigorous approach that ensures a fair balance between individual rights and public interests.