No decision affecting a party is legitimate unless that party has been heard.
From Roman law, and the reason disciplinary processes, planning inquiries and tribunals all build in a right of response. A decision reached without it may be substantively correct and still illegitimate.
In practice
- An employee is dismissed on a report they were never shown, and the tribunal reinstates them without examining whether the report was accurate.
- A planning decision made without hearing objectors is quashed on procedure, and the same decision is reached lawfully six months later.
- Standing
- Retained here as a principle of institutional legitimacy rather than as procedural doctrine.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Law & Politics
- Essay
- Rules that restrain power, and advice on using it