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

Dr. Stephen Thomson is a specialist in Hong Kong public law and is the author of the leading text ‘Administrative Law in Hong Kong’ (Cambridge University Press, 2018).  He is 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, and was Associate Professor of Law and Director of Research Postgraduate Programmes at the School of Law, City University of Hong Kong.  He holds a Ph.D. in judicial review from the University of Edinburgh (UK), and has practical legal and commercial experience, having worked at a UK law firm and acted on a consultancy and advisory basis to law firms, private clients and public bodies in Hong Kong and the UK.

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