Re: Ignorantia juris non excusat
"Unlawful means there is no law allowing you to do it yet but no law to strictly forbid it.
In other words what you have done is outside the law as it stands because it has never been done before so there is no law to strictly forbid it."
It's a possible answer to the question (we probably both found it here https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/special-shows/the-mystery-hour/is-it-unlawful-or-illegal/), but it doesn't sufficiently explain it in a public law context. In this context, "unlawful" simply means that the public authority has overstepped its authority. Either it exercised a power that was not available to it, or it exceeded the limits of that power. In the present case, it is the latter. "Illegal" has several different meanings and there isn't really one that would apply here. It can mean that someone broke an existing law (criminal or civil) or it can refer to a law that is not formulated with sufficient precision so that its application can be reasonably foreseen. It probably has other meanings too, but those would be the most common under UK law.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
