The court gave three conditions on which it would intervene to correct a bad administrative decision, including on grounds of its unreasonableness in the special sense later articulated in Council of Civil Service Unions v Minister for the Civil Service[2] by Lord Diplock: So outrageous in its defiance of logic or accepted moral standards that no sensible person who had applied his mind to the question to be decided could have arrived at it.In 1947, Associated Provincial Picture Houses was granted a licence by the Wednesbury Corporation in Staffordshire to operate a cinema, on condition that no children under 15, whether accompanied by an adult or not, were admitted on Sundays.

the commanding officer of military forces stationed in a neighbourhood could apply to the licensing authority to open a cinema on Sundays.

Lawyers familiar with the phraseology commonly used in relation to exercise of statutory discretions often use the word "unreasonable" in a rather comprehensive sense.

In recent times, particularly as a result of the enactment of the Human Rights Act 1998, the judiciary have receded from this strict abstentionist approach, arguing that in certain circumstances it is necessary to undertake a more searching review of administrative decisions.

In order to justify such an intrusion, the Respondents have to show that they pursued a "pressing social need" and that the means employed to achieve this were proportionate to the limitation of the right.