The Deputy Bailiff in giving judgment in Century (above) at p.234 at first instance opted for "judicial restraint" rather than "judicial activism" to use phrases taken from de Smith woolf and Jowell on judicial Review of Administrative Action (Fifth Edn), chapter 1, giving as his reasons, first, the existence of the Administrative Decisions (Guernsey) Law 1986 which set up an Administrative Board to hear complaints; secondly, the smallness of the jurisdiction; and thirdly, the fragility of its institutions, there being no government, prime minister or cabinet. He feared a concerted attack by English lawyers acting at one remove through Guernsey advocates.

The approach of the Deputy Bailiff could not be better expressed than in the following passage:-

"However, with the smallness of our institutions what is apparently a serious failure to go about an act of government in the right way can be put right by a letter or a telephone call and not a judicially refined missile costing in time and resources an amount wholly out of proportion to the perceived wrong".

While this approach may appear at first sight to present certain advantages, it is in our view both out of date and inappropriate for an Island which now enjoys the position of an international financial centre of importance. As to the size of the Island, it has a population in the same general order as Jersey and the Isle of Man. Such an approach would also provide an informal structure dependent very much on individual perception and open to the risk of possible prejudice, which in addition could not satisfy the requirements of Article 13 of the European Convention of Human Rights, to which convention the United Kingdom has adhered and which was extended to Guernsey in 1953 under the terms of Article 63, "subject to local conditions" See the decision of this court in British Broadcasting company -v- Law officers of the crown: 18 November 1988: No.25 (civil) .