Abstract:
This thesis is about the use of terms "void" and "voidable" in Administrative Law with particular emphasis on breach of the rules of natural Justice.
A South African Judge once said that the task of trying to differentiate between void and voidable decisions was similar to "blind men looking in a dark room for a black cat which wasn't there" Van den Heever J. in Van der Westhuizen v. Engelbrecht [1942] O.P.D. 191, 199 - cited by Eekelaar in a casenote on Durayappah v. Fernando [1967] 2 A.C. 337 (P.C.) appearing in (1967) 30 M.L.R. 701, and entitled "Breach of Natural Justice: Void or Voidable?". More recently in 1963 in the now famous case of Ridge v. Baldwin, Lord Evershed had this to say of the disctinction, speaking in a specifically Administrative Law context:-
Indeed, in the vast majority of circumstances, it does not in the end matter whether the decision challenged is void or only voidable; for if the court does decide to quash a decision or otherwise set it aside, then the effect is in general the same whether such decision be considered as void or only voidable [1964] A.C. 40, 86 (H.L.).
