Category Archives: lord justice

Our Application to Appeal to the Court of Appeal has been dismissed


The Right Honourable Lord Justice Hickinbottom has dismissed our Application to Appeal to the Court of Appeal and has used the device of “Totally without Merit” to prevent us from demanding a hearing of our Application. 

 

Given that this is a case that very many lawyers, both distinguished and retired members of the judiciary, QCs, barristers and solicitors think has strong legal credibility, this decision can only be based upon the Judge’s politics. 

 

In the English and Welsh Jurisdiction these days a Judge’s politics perhaps should not be a surprise, given the blatant bias in the appointments system introduced under Blair by his last proper Lord Chancellor, Lord Derry Irvine, who created the Judicial Appointments Commission publicly boasting that he had created a system which would not allow the appointment of any Judges who had “Reactionary Views”. 

 

The Judicial Appointments Commission requires all Judges to prove that they have “a life-time’s commitment to Equality and Diversity”.  Lord Justice Hickinbottom has this in spades, as it says on his biography published on the Judicial website which says he is:- “the former Senior Liaison Judge for Diversity”.

 

Also Lord Justice Hickinbottom is a Fellow of the European Law Institute.  The first among ELI’s core objections is:- “To evaluate and stimulate the development of EU law, legal policy, and practice, and in particular make proposals for the further development of the acquis and for the enhancement of EU law implementation by the Member States.”

 

So it is perhaps not a surprise that a Judge with such views would be more a Europhile Left-wing political activist than someone who would judge simply according to law. 

 

Such is my explanation of why we have had this decision go against us. 

 

The reasoning behind a claim that the case was ‘Totally without Merit’ is not about an actual finding of fact, since as our QC made clear, it was blatantly obviously that the first Judge had actually got his decision wrong and therefore our Application to Appeal clearly had substantial merit. 

 

No, this decision is not about the genuine merits of the case, it is about preventing this case from being heard, which the device of ‘Totally without Merit’ achieves, as I explained in a previous blog. 

 

I think the only sensible reaction to this is to make an Application to the European Convention of Human Rights Court, based in Strasbourg.  This is of course not the EU Court, but a court that will look at whether or not these decisions to exclude our case from even getting a hearing is simply on the political orientation of the Judiciary and is a breach of Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights which states:-

 

“In the determination of his civil rights….everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearingwithin a reasonable time by an…impartial tribunal”

 

Another interesting questions is why Lord Justice Hickinbottom was chosen by the Civil Service to hear the case? 

 

I think Jacob Rees-Mogg rather gave the game away when he was asked about the case.  He made clear that he did not want it to succeed.  Maybe that is also true of the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.  If so that would simply be a demonstration that both of them are much more concerned about the Conservative Party in “getting Brexit done” than about the interests of our country in how it is done.

 

The worrying element of that thought is that it means that they will be quite open to agreeing completely unacceptable surrender terms to the EU in some sort of Withdrawal Agreement. 

 

Boris’ Ministry of Justice did of course have the opportunity to influence which Judge got to look at these papers and what steer that that Judge was probably given as to the outcome that was desired. 

 

Let’s see now if the European Court of Human Rights considers that the politicised way that the High Court and the Court of Appeal operate is in breach of the European Convention of Human Rights!

 

I think it is a sad reflection on the state of our country in which we have allowed Leftist social justice warriors to dictate the agenda, not only in politics and in the media, but also in the court system.  A court system which used to be renowned for its impartial and incorruptible justice!

 

What do you think?

BREXIT CASE APPEALED TO THE COURT OF APPEAL

BREXIT CASE APPEALED TO THE COURT OF APPEAL

Here is the Order of Mr Justice Spencer:-

It certifies that our Application is “Totally Without Merit”.  This is, on the face of it, totally mystifying, as it is obvious that the case is clearly at least“arguable”!
The explanation however lies in the relevant Court Rule which was developed in 2016.  This was supposedly to stop unmeritorious immigration claims clogging up the system.
Here is the text of the Totally Without Merit Appeal Rule:-
“Judicial review appeals from the High Court
52.8
(2) Where permission to apply for judicial review ….. has been refused on the papers and recorded as being totally without merit in accordance with rule 23.12, an application for permission to appeal may be made to the Court of Appeal.
(4) An application under paragraph (2) must be made within 7 days of service of the order of the High Court refusing permission to apply for judicial review.
(5) On an application under paragraph (1) or (2), the Court of Appeal may, instead of giving permission to appeal, give permission to apply for judicial review.
(6) Where the Court of Appeal gives permission to apply for judicial review in accordance with paragraph (5), the case will proceed in the High Court unless the Court of Appeal orders otherwise.”
We have however appealed in time to the Court of Appeal and here is our “Ground of Appeal”:-
“The learned judge erred in law by finding that it was unarguable that there was not a Prerogative or a statutory power to agree to an extension of the period between notification and withdrawal of a Member State by Article 50 of the TEU.”
We now wait for a single “Lord Justice of Appeal” to rule on the case.  That will probably be another wait of several weeks!

Ever imagined that the courts are unbiased? If so, here is your medicine. Read and be cured!

Kirk here – beam me up Scotty!

Here is an excellent and all too true explanation of the institutional bias at the heart of the new style British judiciary. New Labour gerrymandered so many other things so why would anyone imagine they didn’t do so also to the courts?

Ever wondered why our courts have a Leftist bias?

 By Daniel Hannan

Why do we need a quango for barristers?

Judicial activism is a problem in almost every country. Judges have a lamentable, if inevitable, tendency to rule on the basis of what they think the law ought to say rather than what it actually says.

But here’s a puzzle. Why do they always seem to be biased in the same direction? Courts are forever striking down deportation orders, but did you ever hear of them stepping in to order the repatriation of an illegal immigrant whom the Home Office had allowed to stay? The imposition by Parliament of minimum prison tariffs for certain offences was howled down as an assault on judicial independence. But maximum tariffs? No problem there. It’s common for warrants to be served against Augusto Pinochet or Ariel Sharon or George Bush; never against Fidel Castro or Robert Mugabe or Kim Jong-un. A minister rules that a murderer should’t be released? Outrageous! A minister rules (in Northern Ireland) that murderers should be released? Quite right.

The US judge Robert Bork wrote a book called Coercing Virtue, which argued that judges were consciously seeking to advance an agenda that had been rejected at the ballot-box. It amounted, Bork averred, to “a coup d’état – slow-moving and genteel, but a coup d’état nonetheless”.

Judges are often open, when speaking extra-judicially, about what they see as their obligation strike down (in Lord Woolf’s phrase) “bad laws”. In one sense, judicial activism is inescapable. Someone, after all, has to be the final arbiter. As Bishop Hoadley of Winchester remarked three centuries ago, “whoever interprets a law may justly be considered the lawgiver, not he who first wrote or spake it”.

Still, why does the judiciary lean Left? Half a century ago, the popular stereotype of a judge was of a stern disciplinarian committed to the absolute defence of property rights. What changed?

Part of the problem is surely the appointments system. Judges used to be chosen by the Lord Chancellor – a system which on paper seemed open to abuse and which, for that very reason, was in practice almost never abused. Successive Lord Chancellors, conscious of their responsibility, would carefully avoid any suspicion of partiality. Then, in 2005, Labour created a Judicial Appointments Commission, which was charged with promoting candidates on the basis, inter alia, of “the need to encourage diversity”. While diversity is certainly desirable (diversity in the fullest sense – of opinion and outlook as well as sex and race), the vagueness of the criterion opened the door to favouritism and partisanship.

Indeed, the prejudice starts further upstream. It’s not easy to be a judge unless you’ve been a QC. The Bar used to be self-regulating, but New Labour changed that, too, creating a quango called QC Appointments. Here, too, one of the criteria is commitment to diversity.

It is vital to stress that this doesn’t mean having more diverse QCs – for which a good case can be made. It means promoting barristers who have a political commitment to “diversity” in the Leftie, public-sector sense of he word. The QCA’s general report, explains that “diversity competence” includes both awareness and action… being aware is not enough: there must be evidence of support for the principle and practice of diversity, or personal action.

For the avoidance of doubt the QCA’s “Approach to the Competencies” report explains:

The Panel sought evidence of a pro-active approach to diversity issues which in outstanding candidates ran like a consistent ‘thread’ through their language and behaviours.

You don’t need to be Richard Littlejohn to see that this is a political test. In the name of diversity, a less diverse cohort of QCs is being created, one whose members are expected to endorse the Left-liberal orthodoxy. Thus can a party that loses office retain power.

It’s worth remembering that the Conservatives were elected on a promise to abolish unelected agencies. Here is an especially superfluous example. Why, after all, should the state have any role in privileging some barristers over others? Couldn’t this be left to the profession itself?
Ministers have scrapped one QCA – the hopeless quango that was supposed to regulate exam boards. Why is the other still hanging around?

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100263531/heres-why-the-courts-tend-to-lean-left/ 

Petty bureaucracy trumps Justice in the Royal Courts

Lord of Injustice Jackson?

Petty bureaucracy trumps Justice in the Royal Courts

As a solicitor practicing in Civil Litigation and as a member (also past President) of my local Law Society, I attended an interesting talk on Thursday given by Matthew Harman, a Partner in the Costs Lawyers, Harmans Costs, Ardenham Lane House, Ardenham Lane, Aylesbury, Bucks HP19 8AA, who seemed very able and switched on talking about the effect of the latest fad of “Reforms” in Civil Litigation. These are known as the “Jackson Reforms”, after Lord Justice Jackson.

Lord Justice Jackson seems to be the very model of the sort of Judge that Derry Irvine and the Labour Party were keen to appoint during their years in office. That is to say he is very Statist in his philosophy about Law, he is very bureaucratically minded and evidently he is not very interested in Justice. That is with the meaning that “Justice” would mean to any right- thinking ordinary Englishman, whether he be (in the traditional phrase) on the back of the “Clapham Omnibus” or not!

Jackson also appears to have the very dogmatic adherence to the details of rules of a petty town hall bureaucrat. Indeed under the Jackson Reforms “Justice” has been redefined to be fundamentally about the administrative convenience of the Court and the State!

As part of this Statist mentality, the Courts are now supposed to “manage” cases. This is of course quite an odd concept, bearing in mind that most judges are former barristers and have therefore absolutely no experience of managing how litigation runs, let alone understanding the underlying economic realities or even for that matter of running or organising a normal business! Yet these same people are now expected to “manage” access to perhaps the most important function that a State has (with the exception of defence), I mean the Administration of Justice!

You may well have heard of one of the products of Lord Justice Jackson’s staggering lack of common-sense in the case of the wronged MP, Mr Andrew Mitchell of so-called plebgate fame, in which the police appear to have lied about what he said. In the Mitchell litigation the courts in their un-wisdom have now ruled that no costs can be recovered from the newspaper which libelled him!

Even worse in recent cases the courts are now saying that if you are even slightly late in putting in your witness statements then you are not allowed to have your witnesses give evidence at the trial!

Tacky looking EU style zip up gowns!

I am normally not one to rush to the European Convention of Human Rights, but with such respect as I can muster for the Lord Justices now wearing their tacky looking EU style zip up gowns and no wigs (therefore no longer looking like traditional English Judges that you could respect), this is a blatant and obvious breach of one of the European Convention’s cornerstone rights, the right to a FAIR TRIAL in which the parties have “equality of arms”.

In my time as a lawyer this is the third time that there has been a mad-cap attempt at a top down reform of the Civil Justice system. In each case it has been motived by Europhile enthusiasm, in particular for the German model of Civil Justice. On each occasion the “reformers” have missed the key feature of the German system which makes that system bearable to the people under it, which is that it is the DUTY of the Court to make the right decision and not of lawyers to do anything other than to assist the Court in making the right decision.

In England the opposite is the case and it is the solicitors’ and barristers’ job to present their client’s case as effectively as they can and the Judge merely in effect arbitrates between the cases that are put before them.

For such a Judge to take on supposedly managing cases with no experience in practical life of doing so, is not only simply absurd, but it inevitably leads to widespread miscarriages of justice.

As a lawyer I feel ashamed that the supposed leaders of our profession should have lent their names to these “reforms”. As a politician, it is yet another example of the contemptible incompetence of our political class that this travesty has been imposed by the laughably mis-named “Ministry of Justice”.

If there was real justice then the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand, which is such a splendid embodiment of the Victorian respect for the greatness of English law and justice, should be renamed the Royal Courts of Bureaucratic Nit-picking – that is for as long as the Queen will want her Title associated with such a betrayal of our traditions!

But then, of course, for those interested in legal history, we should not be surprised that justice is not safe in the hands of careerist Judges.

In England the reason why justice and common-sense was preserved within our Court system over the centuries was because Juries decided almost all cases of fact and, if the law was likely to work an injustice, very often made their findings in such a way as to ensure that a just result was obtained.

Of course English juries were until the late 1960’s rate payers only, so bring back jury trials for more complicated cases we might need a process whereby a decision was made as to the appropriate level of qualification required of jurors that was related to the complexity of the case.