There was no statutory appeal against the issuing of this notice, and so the applicant sought judicial review of the decision by the Court of Session, complaining in particular that precise allegations were never put to him and he was merely faced with broad imprecise charges. His application for judicial review failed, the court holding that the failure to provide precise allegations was not unlawful because s. 60(4) of the 1982 Act absolved the Secretary of State from the obligation to disclose any particulars of the ground on which he was considering the service on the company of the notice of objection. The applicant then made an application to the European Commission of Human Rights, alleging a violation of Art. 6 of the European Convention, on the basis that the finding by the Secretary of State that he was not a “fit and proper person” effectively determined his civil right to take up his position with the company, that he should therefore have been entitled to a fair hearing in that determination, that the proceedings before the civil servants were neither judicial nor fair, and that the scope of review of the Secretary of State’s decision by the court was insufficiently broad to comply with the requirements of Art. 6.

Held (E.C.H.R.): The application was inadmissible. The proceedings before the civil servants did determine the applicant’s civil rights and did not satisfy the requirements of Art. 6. However, they were subject to subsequent control by the Court of Session, which was a judicial body with full jurisdiction and which provided the guarantees of Art. 6, and the applicant had failed to show that the court’s scope of review was insufficiently broad