Caution: Status as ‘Criminal Cause or Matter’
| Published date | 01 August 2004 |
| Date | 01 August 2004 |
| DOI | 10.1350/jcla.68.4.276.36523 |
| Subject Matter | Court of Appeal |
Court of Appeal
Caution: Status as ‘criminal cause or matter’
R (on the application of Aru) vChief Constable of Merseyside [2004] EWCA
Civ 199, The Times (2 May 2004)
The applicant (A) had been cautioned for a public order offence. He
subsequently sought to quash that caution by way of judicial review
proceedings on the grounds that it had been offered and accepted in
circumstances which amounted to a threat or inducement by the police
officers concerned and therefore had been imposed unlawfully and in
contravention of the relevant Home Office guidelines. The judicial re-
view hearing focused on the factual disputes between A and the officers
about precisely what had occurred. The judge ruled against A and found
that that he was not satisfied to the requisite standard that the officers
had acted as alleged. The application failed as a result.
A then sought to appeal to the Court of Appeal against the outcome
of those High Court proceedings. Section 18(1) of the Supreme Court
Act 1981 provides that no appeal shall lie to the Court of Appeal from
any judgment of the High Court ‘in any criminal cause or matter’. Upon
the lodging of the relevant notice to appeal, Master Venne ruled that on
this basis the court had no jurisdiction to hear the appeal. A was
subsequently given leave to appeal against this ruling.
Although in a criminal cause or matter there was a route of appeal
from the High Court to the House of Lords under s. 1(1) of the Admini-
stration of Justice Act 1960, this required the leave of either the High
Court or the House of Lords and such leave could only be granted on the
basis that there was a point of law of general public importance. As A’s
case centred on a factual dispute, it was common ground that he could
have no prospect of availing himself of this appeal route. If therefore
Master Venne’s ruling as to jurisdiction was correct, A would effectively
have no route of appeal from the decision of the High Court.
The issue which fell to be decided was as to whether the judicial
review proceedings were a ‘criminal cause or matter’. It was argued on
behalf of A that such proceedings by their nature and rules were civil
and in the alternative, if there were no effective right of appeal, A was
entitled to invoke Article 6 of the European Convention of Human
Rights to found an argument that such a lack of appeal route contra-
vened his right to a fair trial.
H
ELD
,
DISMISSING THE APPEAL
:
1. It was overly simplistic to conclude that the proceedings in ques-
tion were civil just because applications for judicial review were
civil proceedings conducted within the Civil Procedure Rules.
2. The words ‘criminal cause or matter’ denoted a wider ambit than
‘criminal proceedings’. Although the administering of a caution
276
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