- Flynote
- Administrative Review
- Case summary
- Appeal dismissed. There is nothing exceptional about these applications; they are the garden variety applications for specific disclosure and the proceedings in which the issue was alive have been completed. It is quintessentially a private law matter of certain asylum seekers pursuing a right to work while their applications are being considered. It could not be a matter of public policy; and there is no evidence of an established policy under which the authorities’ powers and the applicants’ rights, if any, could be ascertained and enforced. If there was it would probably have been raised in the action. It certainly cannot be done from an unsettled draft policy document on which the respondent has not sought to rely and which cannot be applied to the Plaintiffs, who are therefore not prejudiced by its existence [23]. In the absence of a duty to consult, no public interest can be served by disclosing a draft policy which may be changed in material respects later. There is no important point of construction that needs clarification for future cases, it does not involve a constitutional point that has not been settled, or an area of law in dispute or a legal question the resolution of which poses dire consequences for the public. The latter criteria for identifying matters of general public importance are taken from obiter remarks by Saunders J A, as he then was, in Martinus Francois v The Attorney General St Lucia Civil Appeal No 37 of 2003 which are consistent with the House of Lords and Privy Council authorities cited by counsel [24]. On the facts of this case, accepting jurisdiction for an appeal will engage the Court in a purely speculative exercise. The issue of jurisdiction was not raised in the Court below, but Ms. Hippolyte now submits that on the authorities, the facts of this case, and for the reasons outlined above the Court ought not to entertain the appeal. We agree [25]. In our judgment that is sufficient to dispose of this putative appeal so it is not necessary for the Court to engage the merits of the issues of relevance, public interest immunity, and waiver which were dismissed by the judge [26].
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