The limits of the non-intervention principle

Recent case law from Jersey and the Isle of Man

by Hugh Jeffery

Save in exceptional circumstances, the court will not interfere in the exercise of trustee's discretionary powers. That is the non-intervention principle. The principle is familiar, fundamental and longstanding. As Jessel MR said in Tempest v Lord Camoys (1882) 21 Ch D 571 at 578, where a settlor "has given a pure discretion to trustees as to the exercise of a power, the court does not enforce the exercise of the power against the wish of the trustees, but it does prevent them from exercising it improperly".