CONNORS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT 29 would observe that the domestic courts stopped short of finding any breach of the provisions of the Convention, having regard inter alia to the perceived existence of safeguards that diminished the impact on the individual gypsy’s rights and to a judicial reluctance to trespass on the legislative function in seeking to resolve the complex issues to which no straightforward answer was possible. The domestic courts’ position cannot therefore be analysed as providing strong support for the justification of continuing the current regime. 92. The existence of other procedural safeguards is however a crucial consideration in this Court’s assessment of the proportionality of the interference. The Government have relied on the possibility for the applicant to apply for judicial review and to obtain a scrutiny by the courts of the lawfulness and reasonableness of the Council’s decisions. It would also be possible to challenge the Council for any failure to take into account in its decision-making relevant matters such as duties towards children (see paragraph 42 above). The Court would recall that the applicant sought permission to apply for judicial review and that permission was refused. In the applicant’s case, his principal objection was based not on any lack of compliance by the Council with its duties or on any failure to act lawfully but on the fact that he and the members of the family living with him on the plot were not responsible for any nuisance and could not be held responsible for the nuisance caused by others who visited the site. Whether or not he would have succeeded in that argument, a factual dispute clearly existed between the parties. Nonetheless, the local authority was not required to establish any substantive justification for evicting him and on this point judicial review could not provide any opportunity for an examination of the facts in dispute between the parties. Indeed, the Government drew the Court’s attention to the Court of Appeal’s decision in Smart, where it was held that to entitle persons housed under homelessness provisions, without security of tenure, to have a court decide on the facts of their cases as to the proportionality of their evictions would convert their occupation into a form of secure tenure and in effect undermine the statutory scheme (paragraph 54 above). While therefore the existence of judicial review may provide a valuable safeguard against abuse or oppressive conduct by local authorities in some areas, the Court does not consider that it can be regarded as assisting the applicant, or other gypsies, in circumstances where the local authority terminates licences in accordance with the applicable law. 93. The Court would not under-estimate the difficulties of the task facing the authorities in finding workable accommodation solutions for the gypsy and traveller population and accepts that this is an area in which national authorities enjoy a margin of appreciation in adopting and pursuing their social and housing policies. The complexity of the situation has, if anything, been enhanced by the apparent shift in habit in the gypsy population which remains nomadic in spirit if not in actual or constant