The seminal GCHQ case lays down the criteria of judicial review.

These criteria include,

illegality and irrationality and procedural. Judicial review is an inherent jurisdiction of the high
court not one granted to it by parliament as opposed to appeals which are dependable on
statutory provisions. That said, parliament could impose limits on the exercise of judicial review
through the premise of conclusive evidence clauses. These clauses are inserted by parliament in
acts that delegate law making powers to public bodies, with the intent to exclude judicial review.
Such clauses provide that a subordinate piece of legislation shall have effect as if enacted in this
act thereby offering the public body in effect the same immunity from judicial scrutiny as
enjoyed by statutes under the doctrine of Parliamentary Supremacy.
In other instances however, a statute could contain less conclusively worded clauses that
may have the effect of excluding judicial review. These clauses are called Ouster Clauses, in this
connection the court on a case to case basis. Thus in R V Medical Appeal Tribunal, ex parte
Gilmore 19 the relevant statute provided that the decision made on any medical question by
medical appeal tribunal is final. According to the court, the word final meant that there should be
no appeal but did not amount to an exclusion of Judicial Review by the parliament. Parliament
must use the most clear and explicit words if it intends to prevent the exercise of judicial review -
the courts.

The abuse of discretion

The allegation of illegality may also take from the Public Authority abusing the discretion which
was given by statutes. The limits of Judicial Review are that in some instances, a statute has
confere very broad discretionary powers on an administrative body generally, the broader the
conferred discretion the more difficult it will be to seek review. A number of categories of abuse
of discretion fall under this heading
● Relevant and irrelevant considerations - an authority may have been ultra vires (because
in deciding it took irrelevant considerations into account or conversely it failed to take
relevant considerations into account) Robert V Hopwood 1925
● Unauthorised delegation - Where powers are conferred by statute they may not be
delegated unless that delegation is authorised by law. Not all delegations will be unlawful
for instance, the courts do not hold that a minister must exercise each and every power
individually thus where the statute gives powers to a minister, these powers are also
 deemed to be confere to his or her department providing these people are not civil
servants.
● Fettering Discretion - An authority may act ultra vires if in the exercise of its power it
adopts a policy which effectively means it is not truly exercising its discretion at all.