Civil Liability Act 2002

This section applies to proceedings for civil liability to which this Part applies to the extent that the liability is based on a public or other authority’s exercise of, or failure to exercise, a special statutory power conferred on the authority.

A special statutory power is a power—

that is conferred by or under a statute, and

that is of a kind that persons generally are not authorised to exercise without specific statutory authority.

For the purposes of any such proceedings, any act or omission involving an exercise of, or failure to exercise, a special statutory power does not give rise to civil liability unless the act or omission was in the circumstances so unreasonable that no authority having the special statutory power in question could properly consider the act or omission to be a reasonable exercise of, or failure to exercise, its power.

In the case of a special statutory power of a public or other authority to prohibit or regulate an activity, this section applies in addition to section 44.