Adami, R (on the application of) v Ethical Standards Officer of the Standards Board for England

A statutory tribunal deciding whether a councillor has breached a code of conduct must give its own reasons. The reasons must enable the losing party to understand why the decision was reached and why the party’s material arguments were rejected. It is insufficient simply to list the relevant code provisions and adopt an investigator’s report wholesale. A tribunal may use concise reasons and take account of the parties’ familiarity with the facts, but it must identify the conduct said to breach each provision and explain the rejection of significant submissions.

The claimant, a councillor, appealed against a Case Tribunal’s finding that he had breached North Dorset District Council’s Code of Conduct and its consequential four-year disqualification. The hearing proceeded in his absence after the tribunal refused further adjournment applications.

The tribunal reproduced the factual narrative and the parties’ submissions, listed ten provisions of the Code, and stated that the claimant had breached them by the conduct identified in the Ethical Standards Officer’s report. It adopted the reasoning of that report without explaining which facts breached which provisions or why the claimant’s submissions failed. The central issue was whether the tribunal had given an adequately reasoned decision under section 79 of the Local Government Act 2000.

1. Appeal allowed. The Case Tribunal’s decision was quashed. The four-year disqualification fell with it.
2. Section 79(1) of the Local Government Act 2000 required the Case Tribunal itself to decide whether the councillor had failed to comply with the relevant code. The decision was therefore the tribunal’s decision, not the Ethical Standards Officer’s.
3. Following English v Emery Reimbold & Strick Ltd [2002] 1 WLR 2409, a statutory tribunal determining a citizen’s rights had to give reasons sufficient to enable the unsuccessful party to know why the party had lost. Reasons need not be an extended essay. The tribunal could recognise that the parties knew the facts. It nevertheless had to identify the factual conduct corresponding to the alleged breaches and explain why the material arguments were rejected.
4. The tribunal’s wholesale adoption of the Ethical Standards Officer’s report did not satisfy that duty. The tribunal had not explained which parts of the factual narrative amounted to breaches of which Code provisions. Nor had it explained why the submissions reproduced in its decision were rejected. Its reference, when dealing with penalty, to the claimant’s legitimate concerns did not cure that deficiency.
5. An adjournment to obtain an affidavit from the tribunal chairman explaining or supplementing the decision was refused. The proposed reasoning would have been ex post facto and would go beyond permissible clarification or amplification of existing reasons.

• Case Tribunal: Found breaches of North Dorset District Council’s Code of Conduct and imposed a four-year disqualification.
• High Court (Administrative Court): On the statutory appeal, the tribunal’s decision was quashed because it was inadequately reasoned. The disqualification was consequently quashed.