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following hierarchy:
1.
It shall be the duty ... (absolute)
2.
It shall be the duty so far as is practicable ... (qualified)
3.
It shall be the duty so far as is reasonably practicable ... (qualified)
So far as is practicable: Where a legal requirement introduces the phrase so far as is
practicable, then the duty that it qualifies needs to be complied with in the light of
current knowledge and invention. In other words, we need to ask whether it is
physically possible to do it at the time.
This judgement must be regardless of:
The time it would take to perform the duty
The trouble involved in performing the duty
The cost of performing the duty
Also, the judgement must be kept under review. What may be physically impossible to
perform today may, with developments in technology, become physically possible to
perform tomorrow.
An important example of a duty qualified by the phrase so far as is practicable is within
The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998, which introduces a
hierarchy of measures to prevent access to dangerous parts of machines, each step in
the hierarchy being qualified.
So far as is reasonably practicable
This qualification requires a balance to be made of the total cost of performing the duty,
on the one hand, and the risks to be reduced by performing the duty, on the other hand.
This calculation has to be made before an accident occurs.
Where the risks are very high, then the duty must be performed irrespective of the cost.
However, where the risks are significantly reduced and, due to the law of diminishing
returns, the cost of reducing the risks still further are disproportionately high, then the
duty is not deemed to be reasonably practicable to perform.
In considering the costs involved no allowance can be made for the size, nature of
profitability of the business concerned. It is the risk which determines whether or not
the cost involved is justified.
All of these points were summed-up nicely in a leading case law decision in which the
Judge stated that:
Reasonably practicable
is a narrower term than physically possible and implies that a
computation must be made in which the quantum of risk is placed in one scale and the
sacrifice, whether in money, time or trouble involved in the measures necessary to avert
the risk is placed in the other; and that, if it is shown that there is a gross disproportion
