CPD Course:
Breach of
Legitimate Expectations
as a Ground of
Judicial Review

Dr. Stephen Thomson is an Associate Professor at the ANU College of Law, The Australian National University.  He previously worked in Hong Kong for a number of years at The Chinese University of Hong Kong and City University of Hong Kong.  Dr. Thomson is the author of the leading text 'Administrative Law in Hong Kong' (Cambridge University Press, 2018), a Legal Adviser to the Ombudsman of Hong Kong, a member of the Constitutional Affairs and Human Rights Committee of the Law Society of Hong Kong, and an examiner on the Overseas Lawyers Qualification Examination.  He is also the General Editor of the Federal Law Review and was a Herbert Smith Freehills Visitor at the University of Cambridge.  His work has been used by courts, government and legislatures in Hong Kong, the UK and the US.  Dr. Thomson holds a PhD in constitutional and administrative law from the University of Edinburgh.

This is an intermediate level course on breach of legitimate expectations as a ground of judicial review.  This increasingly important area of administrative law in Hong Kong comprises breach of both procedural and substantive expectations.  We will move from basic principles to consider how legitimate expectations arise, who can cause them to be created, and how they can be protected.

Can legitimate expectations be generated by conduct? How have the courts responded where a specific and a general class of persons have each sought to claim legitimate expectations? Can the representations or conduct of one government department bind another department? Must the applicant have had knowledge of the representation and detrimentally relied on it? Can the conduct of the applicant frustrate what might otherwise have been a legitimate claim to have a legitimate expectation?

These and other important questions in this growing area of administrative law will be explored, together with a number of major cases in this area including Ng Siu Tung v Director of Immigration (2002) and the recent, topical decisions in Hong Kong Television Network Ltd v Chief Executive in Council (2015/2016).

• What are legitimate expectations?
• Who can generate legitimate expectations?
• How are they generated?
• How are they protected?
• Have the courts differentiated between specific and general classes of persons purporting to claim legitimate expectations?
• Can the representations or conduct of one government department bind another department?
• The role of knowledge and (detrimental) reliance
• Conduct of the applicant