JAMES AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUGDMENT 29 For the rest, in the Court’s opinion, such other requirements as may be included in the phrase "subject to the conditions provided for by law" were satisfied in the circumstances of the taking of the applicants’ properties (see paragraphs 141 - 143 of the Commission’s report and, mutatis mutandis, the above-mentioned Malone judgment, pp. 32-33, paras. 66-68, and the authorities cited there). (iv) Absence of independent consideration of the reasonableness of each proposed enfranchisement 68. The applicants contended that the operation of the leasehold reform legislation is indiscriminate since it does not provide any machinery whereby the landlord can seek an independent consideration, in any particular case, of either the justification for enfranchisement or the principles on which the compensation is to be calculated, once only it is established that the tenancy is within the ambit of the legislation. They pointed to evident differences between leasehold tenants of modest housing in South Wales and the better off, middle-class tenants on their Estate in Belgravia, who on the whole could not be classified as needy or deserving of protection. In their submission, in order to avoid injustice for the landlord as well as the tenant, the legislation should have provided for judicial review going into the details and reasonableness of each proposed enfranchisement. Such a system may have been possible, and indeed a proposal to this effect was made during the debates on the draft legislation (see paragraph 19 above). However, Parliament chose instead to lay down broad and general categories within which the right of enfranchisement was to arise. The reason for this choice, according to the Government, was to avoid the uncertainty, litigation, expense and delay that would inevitably be caused for both tenants and landlords under a scheme of individual examination of each of many thousands of cases. Expropriation legislation of wide sweep, in particular if it implements a programme of social and economic reform, is hardly capable of doing entire justice in the diverse circumstances of the very large number of different individuals concerned. It is in the first place for Parliament to assess the advantages and disadvantages involved in the various legislative alternatives available (see paragraph 46 above). In view of the fact that the legislation was estimated to be likely to affect 98 to 99 per cent of the one and a quarter million dwellinghouses held on long leases in England and Wales (see paragraph 19 in fine above), the system chosen by Parliament cannot in itself be dismissed as irrational or inappropriate. (v) Individual transactions 69. The applicants finally submitted that even if enfranchisement is capable in principle of being "in the public interest", the 80 individual

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