Ridge v Baldwin (1963)

This is the decision that revived natural justice in administrative law.

For decades the courts had confined the duty to act fairly to bodies exercising a "judicial" or "quasi-judicial" function, and had treated "administrative" decisions as free of it — a distinction that shrank the audi alteram partem rule almost to nothing. Ridge v Baldwin swept that away: the duty to hear arises from the nature of the power and its consequences for the individual, not from a label attached to the decision-maker.

Everything that follows in English and Indian administrative law — Maneka Gandhi, A.K. Kraipak, the modern duty of fairness — builds on it.

Lord Reid also supplies the classification that makes dismissal cases tractable, and it is the single most useful thing to reproduce in an answer.

Mr Ridge became Chief Constable of the County Borough of Brighton in 1956, after some thirty-three years in the Brighton force.

On 25 October 1957 he was arrested and later tried for conspiring with senior members of his force and others to obstruct the course of justice; he was suspended from duty on 26 October. On 28 February he was acquitted — but two other members of the force were convicted, and in sentencing them the trial judge, Donovan J, "made a statement which included grave reflections on the Appellant's conduct."

He was then indicted for corruption and on 6 March was again acquitted, no evidence being offered against him. Donovan J made a further statement.

The day after that statement, on 7 March 1958, the Watch Committee met and summarily dismissed him, purporting to act under s. 191(4) of the Municipal Corporations Act 1882.

He was given no notice of the grounds on which the Committee proposed to act and no opportunity to be heard in his own defence.

Was the dismissal void for breach of natural justice, or was the Watch Committee's power administrative and so free of any duty to hear?

The dismissal was void. Mr Ridge was entitled to notice of the charge against him and an opportunity to be heard, and had received neither.

Lord Reid's diagnosis of the confusion

"The authorities on natural justice have been found difficult to reconcile [because] insufficient attention has been paid to the great difference between various kinds of cases in which it has been sought to apply the principle. What a Minister ought to do in considering objections to a scheme may be very different from what a Watch Committee ought to do in considering whether to dismiss a Chief Constable."

The three classes of dismissal — learn this

"So I shall deal first with cases of dismissal. These appear to fall 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."

1. Master and servant. "The law regarding master and servant is not in doubt. There cannot be specific performance of a contract of service, and the master can terminate the contract with his servant at any time and for any reason or for none. But if he does so in a manner not warranted by the contract he must pay damages for breach of contract." So in a pure master-and-servant case the question "does not at all depend on whether the master has heard the servant in his own defence: it depends on whether the facts emerging at the trial prove breach of contract."

Lord Reid excluded this class on the facts: "The present case does not fall within this class because a Chief Constable is not the servant of the Watch Committee or indeed of anyone else."

2. Office held at pleasure. "Apart from judges and others whose tenure of office is governed by statute, all servants and officers of the Crown hold office at pleasure." Such an officer "has no right to be heard before he is dismissed, and the reason is clear. As the person having the power of dismissal need not have anything against the officer, he need not give any reason." The point was made as long ago as 1670 in Rex v Mayor of Stratford, where a Town Clerk held office durante bene placito.

3. Office from which a man can be removed only for cause. This is Mr Ridge's class, and it is where natural justice bites. Where there must be something against the man to warrant dismissal, he must be told what it is and given a chance to answer.

Where a person may be deprived of an office or of livelihood only on grounds — that is, where something must be shown against him — the authority must give him notice of the case against him and an opportunity to be heard, and a dismissal without them is void. The duty to observe natural justice does not depend on classifying the function as judicial or quasi-judicial.

The older learning, traceable to Nakkuda Ali v Jayaratne and R v Electricity Commissioners as it had come to be read, required a "duty to act judicially" superadded to the power before natural justice applied. Lord Reid rejected that reading of the authorities: the duty to act judicially is to be inferred from the nature of the power itself and its effect on the person concerned. After Ridge, the question is not what the decision is called but what it does to the individual.

• A.K. Kraipak v Union of India (1969) adopted the reasoning expressly, holding that the distinction between administrative and quasi-judicial functions had become thin, and that fairness applies to administrative action too.
• Maneka Gandhi v Union of India (1978) completed the movement by reading natural justice into Article 21.
• State of Orissa v Dr (Miss) Binapani Dei (1967) applied the same idea to an administrative determination of age affecting service.

• Direct question: Discuss the rule audi alteram partem. Use Ridge v Baldwin as the turning point; give Lord Reid's three classes; then trace Kraipak and Maneka Gandhi.
• Problem question pattern: an officer removable only for cause is dismissed without notice or hearing. Void. If instead the office is held at pleasure, or the relationship is pure master and servant, no hearing is required — but check for a statute or regulation restricting the grounds of dismissal, which pulls the case back into the third class.
• Sharpest point: dismissal followed the day after a judge's remarks, with no charge put to the man and no chance to answer, after two acquittals. Facts that make the principle vivid are worth two sentences in an answer.
• The proposition to state: the duty to act fairly flows from the nature and consequences of the power, not from a label.