Jurisdictional error is nearly impossible to explain to lay people even though the Constitution (including the central provisions in s 75(v)) belongs to them.
The nine statutory grounds of review provided for in s 5 of the ADJR Act overlap substantially with the concept of jurisdictional error at common law.
"[12] Canadian administrative law has a similar set of concepts called substantive review which incorporates most of the criteria of jurisdictional error.
In the UK, the House of Lords has held they are "... an incorrect interpretation of a statutory phrase by the ... authorities [that] amounted to an error of law that was judicially reviewable".
[15] In the CCSU Case,[16] Lord Diplock suggests that the grounds can be reduced to three or four broad concepts – illegality, irrationality, procedural impropriety and proportionality.