Background
Baron Ranger received a CBE from Queen Elizabeth II. After considering nine allegations against him and inviting written representations, the Honours Forfeiture Committee recommended that the honour be revoked. The Prime Minister accepted that recommendation on 7 October 2024, and The King formally annulled the CBE on 15 October 2024.
Baron Ranger sought judicial review of the Prime Minister’s recommendation, rather than The King’s decision itself. The court addressed only the preliminary question whether a recommendation to revoke an honour is capable of judicial review in any circumstances; it did not examine the allegations, the lawfulness of the particular process followed, or the merits of Ranger’s common-law and Human Rights Act grounds.
The Court’s Holding
Mrs Justice Lieven held that the Prime Minister’s recommendation to revoke the CBE was justiciable at common law. Although the grant of an honour is discretionary, the modern forfeiture system contains published procedures, stated criteria, mandatory considerations, and an opportunity for the recipient to make representations. Those features were capable of creating a procedural legitimate expectation and supplied standards familiar to courts conducting judicial review.
The court also distinguished revocation from an initial refusal to grant an honour. Revocation is public, removes an existing benefit or advantage, and can cause significant reputational harm. The process was neither a personal decision of the Sovereign nor an inherently political, foreign-policy, moral, or religious judgment beyond judicial competence. Any broad discretion or judicial deference would concern the scope and strength of review at a later stage, not whether review was categorically unavailable.
The Human Rights Act claim was likewise justiciable because the common-law challenge was justiciable. The court did not decide whether Ranger had an arguable or successful Article 10 claim, and it declined to determine whether a Convention claim would be independently justiciable if its common-law conclusion were wrong.
Key Takeaways
- A Prime Minister’s recommendation to revoke an honour outside the Sovereign’s personal gift is not categorically immune from judicial review.
- Published forfeiture procedures and criteria may create a procedural legitimate expectation that the prescribed process will be followed.
- The ruling resolved only justiciability; it did not determine whether Ranger’s CBE was properly revoked or whether any pleaded ground of challenge succeeds.
Why It Matters
The judgment rejects a blanket rule that decisions involving the honours prerogative fall outside the courts’ supervisory jurisdiction. It reflects the modern tendency to address constitutional sensitivity through carefully limited grounds of review and appropriate deference, rather than complete immunity.
For public authorities, the decision underscores that formalising and publishing procedures can provide objective standards enforceable through judicial review. For honours recipients, it confirms that the removal of an existing honour may attract procedural protections even though no one has a legal right to receive an honour initially.