The Connection Between Policies and Decisions Made Pursuant to Policies

1. Policies are an indispensable feature of administrative governance. By providing default guidelines for decision-making, policies streamline the everyday administrative work of public authorities, helping to manage the gargantuan task of keeping the machinery of the modern administrative state running smoothly. This article will analyse an issue in the law regulating the usage of administrative policies that has received little attention to date – the connection between the unlawfulness of a policy in itself and the unlawfulness of a decision made pursuant to such a policy. This article will highlight that there is a degree of analytical ambiguity in this area of law, and will propose two suggestions to address the issue. By way of methodology, the article will draw primarily from UK case law. Where relevant, the article will also refer to material from other common law jurisdictions.