Collateral fact doctrine

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The collateral fact doctrine is a doctrine in English law asserted by Diplock LJ in Anisminic Ltd v Foreign Compensation Commission. It asserts that in judicial review cases a distinction can be made between misconstruction of an enabling statute for the kind of case meant to be dealt which is a jurisdictional error and a misconstruction of the statutory description of the situation which would be an error within jurisdiction. [1] Craig has argued that this distinction is impossible to draw.

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References

  1. http://www.studentlawjournal.com/articles/2005/ugrad/judreviewdw.pdf [ bare URL PDF ]