Pickin v British Railways Board [1974] AC 765

A private bill was introduced in Parliament, called the British Railways Act 1968 which sought to conclude the rule that land under abandoned railways would come under the ownership of the adjoining owner. In this case, the adjoining owner was C. C claimed that the British Railways Board misled Parliament into passing the British Railways Act 1968 through false recital. C asserted that the court ought to provide a declaration to nullify the benefit that the British Railways Board would be given by ensuring the Board hold this benefit on trust for C. C proposed the distinction between public and private Acts of Parliament and asserted that it is open for the courts to nullify a private act even where it is not possible to do so for a public act.

Whether the courts could investigate allegations that Parliament had been misled in passing a private Act, and deny that enacted legislation its otherwise applicable legal effect.

The House of Lords allowed the railway board’s appeal and rejected Pickin’s attempt to challenge the statutory benefit through allegations about the passage of the private Act. Courts could interpret and apply enacted legislation but could not investigate whether Parliament had been misled or its internal procedures properly followed in order to deprive the Act of effect. The distinction between public and private Acts did not justify the proposed inquiry. Nor could an indirect trust remedy avoid the problem where it depended on the same allegations. The decision concerned investigation of parliamentary proceedings, not an exemption of the board’s ordinary conduct or subordinate legislation from all legal scrutiny.

Courts do not investigate alleged procedural impropriety or misleading conduct in Parliament to invalidate or neutralise an enacted Act. Pickin applied that principle to a private Act and rejected an indirect remedy dependent on the same impermissible inquiry.

Pickin protects the separation between interpreting legislation and investigating how Parliament came to enact it. The rule covered private as well as public Acts in the circumstances considered. Allegations of misleading Parliament did not authorise a court to neutralise the resulting statute through an indirect trust claim. The case does not prevent courts construing an Act or reviewing subordinate legislation. It should also be distinguished from the later, limited interpretative use of Hansard permitted by Pepper v Hart.