R v Chief Constable of Sussex, ex parte International Trader's Ferry Ltd [1999] 2 AC 418

D provided support to the lorries for exporting livestock across the Channel against protestors that were preventing them from executing their lawful trade. D initially provided assistance for a period of five days per week but chose to restrict this to two days per week due to a lack of funding. R subsequently applied for judicial review of D’s decision to restrict the assistance and put forth the argument that D had a duty to maintain lawful activities. Their alternative argument involved enforcing that a reasonable Chief Constable would not have reached such a decision as a response.

Whether reducing police protection for lawful livestock exports, because of cost and competing operational demands, was an unlawful exercise of the Chief Constable’s discretion.

The House of Lords upheld the Chief Constable's decision to reduce the days on which dedicated police protection was provided. It considered the substantial cost of maintaining the earlier arrangement and the need to meet the force's other responsibilities. The public duty to uphold the law did not oblige the police to commit unlimited resources to securing this particular trade. The decision was assessed against the practical circumstances rather than an idealised guarantee that lawful activity would never be obstructed. The court did not approve unlawful protest or remove judicial control of policing. It concluded that the allocation challenged in this case was a reasonable response to competing demands.

Police resource allocation remains subject to judicial review, but courts recognise substantial operational discretion. A reasonable reduction in protection for one lawful activity may be justified by cost and competing policing obligations without abandoning the duty to uphold the law.

International Trader's Ferry illustrates judicial review of operational decisions where public resources and competing policing needs matter. The duty to preserve the peace does not translate into an unlimited guarantee of protection for one commercial activity. Courts still scrutinise the justification for a restriction; resource pressure is not a formula that automatically defeats review. The case is useful for discussing institutional competence and the intensity of rationality review. Its historical EU-law setting should be distinguished from the continuing domestic lesson about policing discretion.