Constitutional and Administrative Law
Core concepts
A candidate must command the separation of powers, parliamentary sovereignty, the rule of law, and the distinction between constitutional conventions and enforceable legal rules. Know the structure of fundamental rights, their limitation clauses, and the tests courts apply to proportionality and reasonableness. Administrative law turns on the grounds of judicial review: illegality, irrationality, procedural impropriety, and proportionality where the jurisdiction allows it. Master natural justice (audi alteram partem, nemo iudex in causa sua), legitimate expectation, and locus standi.
Traps
Questions often blur the distinction between appeal and review; review examines legality, not merits. Watch for confusion between void and voidable decisions, and between advisory and binding precedent on constitutional matters. Delegated legislation exceeding its parent statute is a classic illegality trap. Another trap is treating a convention as legally enforceable.
Worked example
A minister cancels a licence without hearing the holder. Apply the three-step test: was there a duty to act fairly (yes, a licence affects livelihood); was the hearing omitted (yes); does the omission matter (yes, unless the statute expressly excludes it). The decision is quashed for procedural impropriety; the court does not substitute its own decision.
Rule of thumb
Ask first: what power, under what statute, exercised how, affecting whom? Then test legality, fairness, and rationality in that order.