The claimants submitted, inter alia, that the orders: (i) had been made without any prior consultation as to the principle, relying upon the common law duty to act
fairly and / or the doctrine of procedural legitimate expectation; and (ii) were irrational on the basis that the reasons which had been put forward by the defendants in justification of the decision were inconsistent and contradictoryDyson LJ: The fact that, when conferring on the lord chancellor the
power to prescribe court fees, parliament had decided whom he should consult before doing so, militated strongly against the idea that there should co-exist a common law duty to consult more widely (in the absence of a clear promise by the lord chancellor that there would be
wider consultation and in the absence of any clear established practice of
wider consultation).