When a court reviews the decision of an administrative decision-maker — a tribunal, board, or official — it does not simply substitute its own view. It first decides how closely to scrutinise the decision: the standard of review.
Since 2019 the starting point is a presumption of reasonableness. The court asks whether the decision is justified, transparent and intelligible, and whether it falls within a range of acceptable outcomes on the facts and law. The stricter correctness standard is reserved for defined categories, including constitutional questions, general questions of law of central importance to the legal system, and questions about the boundaries between administrative bodies.
The Court restructured judicial review, reducing the standards of review to two — correctness and reasonableness — and setting out when each applies. Its framework was later revised in Vavilov.
The Court reset the framework for the standard of review, establishing a presumption that administrative decisions are reviewed for reasonableness, with correctness reserved for defined categories such as constitutional questions and general questions of law of central importance. It also gave detailed guidance on what makes a decision reasonable.