Kyle Bankole-Jones v Watford Borough Council

JurisdictionEngland & Wales
JudgeMathew Gullick
Judgment Date24 November 2020
Neutral Citation[2020] EWHC 3100 (Admin)
Date24 November 2020
Docket NumberCase No: CO/3138/2020
CourtQueen's Bench Division (Administrative Court)

[2020] EWHC 3100 (Admin)

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE

QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION

ADMINISTRATIVE COURT

Royal Courts of Justice

Strand, London, WC2A 2LL

Before:

Mathew Gullick

(sitting as a Deputy Judge of the High Court)

Case No: CO/3138/2020

Between:
Kyle Bankole-Jones
Appellant
and
Watford Borough Council
Respondent

Toby Vanhegan (instructed by ARKrights Solicitors) for the Appellant

Catherine Rowlands (instructed by Legal Department, Watford Borough Council) for the Respondent

Hearing date: 8 October 2020

Approved Judgment

Mathew Gullick Deputy Judge

Introduction

1

This is a statutory appeal under section 204 of the Housing Act 1996 (“the 1996 Act”) against a decision of the Respondent local authority made on review pursuant to section 202 of that Act. That decision was to the effect that the Appellant was homeless and eligible for assistance, but that he was not in priority need. There are four grounds of appeal, by which the Appellant challenges the Respondent's conclusion on priority need. The first two are said by the Appellant to raise issues going wider than the individual circumstances of his case. For that reason, the Appellant applied in his Appellant's Notice to transfer the appeal from the County Court to this court. An order to that effect was made by His Honour Judge Vavrecka, sitting in the County Court at Watford, on 9 July 2020.

2

The appeal proceeded before me by way of a remote video hearing using the Microsoft Teams platform. The Appellant was represented by Mr Toby Vanhegan and the Respondent by Ms Catherine Rowlands. I am very grateful to Counsel for the clear and well-structured written and oral submissions that were made on both sides.

Jurisdiction

3

Before turning to the substance of the appeal, I should first deal with an issue that has been raised by the Respondent regarding this court's jurisdiction to deal with it. Section 204 of the 1996 Act provides that an applicant who is dissatisfied with a review conducted under section 202 may appeal to the County Court on any point of law arising from that decision:

“(1) If an applicant has who has requested a review under section 202 –

(a) is dissatisfied with the decision on the review…

he may appeal to the county court on any point of law arising from the decision or, as the case may be, the original decision.”

4

The Appellant's Notice in this case was filed in the County Court. It contained the Appellant's request that the appeal should be transferred to the High Court. The order transferring the appeal was made by Judge Vavrecka on consideration of the papers and was expressed to be an order made of his own motion. It contained a provision permitting either party to apply, within seven days, for an oral hearing to vary the order or to set it aside. The Respondent thereby had the right to an oral hearing on the question of whether the appeal should be transferred. The Respondent did not make any application to that effect. Nor did the Respondent seek to appeal against the order for transfer or to take any other action to challenge it after it was made.

5

Although the Respondent did not make an application to reopen the issue of whether or not the appeal should have been transferred to this court, in her skeleton argument for the hearing of the appeal Ms Rowlands raised the question of whether this court, notwithstanding the order for transfer, had any jurisdiction to hear the appeal at all. A number of procedural issues might have arisen had this submission been correct, including in particular that the Respondent had never sought to overturn Judge Vavrecka's order of 9 July. However, for reasons which I will endeavour to explain, I am satisfied that the learned Judge did have the power to transfer the appeal to this Court and so the procedural consequences of a finding to the contrary do not, therefore, arise.

6

Ms Rowlands' submission was to the effect that the transfer of the appeal had not been validly made because section 42 of the County Courts Act 1984 prohibited such a transfer. That section provides:

Transfer to High Court by order of the county court

(1) Where the county court is satisfied that any proceedings before it are required by any provision of a kind mentioned in subsection (7) to be in the High Court, it shall–

(a) order the transfer of the proceedings to the High Court; or

(b) if the court is satisfied that the person bringing the proceedings knew, or ought to have known, of that requirement, order that they be struck out.

(2) Subject to any such provision, the county court may order the transfer of any proceedings before it to the High Court.

(3) An order under this section may be made either on the motion of the court itself or on the application of any party to the proceedings.

(4) The transfer of any proceedings under this section shall not affect any right of appeal from the order directing the transfer.

(5) Where proceedings for the enforcement of any judgment or order of the county court are transferred under this section–

(a) the judgment or order may be enforced as if it were a judgment or order of the High Court; and

(b) subject to subsection (6), it shall be treated as a judgment or order of that court for all purposes.

(6) Where proceedings for the enforcement of any judgment or order of the county court are transferred under this section—

(a) the powers of any court to set aside, correct, vary or quash a judgment or order of the county court, and the enactments relating to appeals from such a judgment or order, shall continue to apply; and

(b) the powers of any court to set aside, correct, vary or quash a judgment or order of the High Court, and the enactments relating to appeals from such a judgment or order, shall not apply.

(7) The provisions referred to in subsection (1) are any made–

(a) under section 1 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990; or

(b) by or under any other enactment.”

7

There are two ways in which proceedings in the County Court can be transferred to this court under section 42 of the 1984 Act. There is a requirement to transfer certain types of proceeding under section 42(1). There is a discretion to transfer other types of proceeding under section 42(2). Ms Rowlands submitted, correctly, that the present appeal was not a case to which the requirement to transfer under section 42(1) of the 1984 Act applied. Ms Rowlands further submitted that the power to transfer under section 42(2) of the 1984 Act was not available to the County Court in the present case, because section 204 of the 1996 Act was a provision of the type referred to in subsection (7) and, therefore, one to which the discretion to transfer in section 42(2) did not apply at all because of the words “subject to any such provision” which appear at the beginning of that subsection.

8

I reject Ms Rowlands' submission. In my judgment, the reference to “any such provision” in section 42(2) of the 1984 Act is to a provision of the type set out in subsection (1), i.e. to a provision which is made under one of the types of legislation referred to in subsection (7) and which requires the proceedings to be in the High Court. If Parliament had intended to exclude all situations in which legislation specifies that proceedings should be brought in the County Court from the power to transfer under subsection (2) then, in my judgment, it would not have used the words “any such provision” at the beginning of subsection (2). The effect of sections 42(1) and (2) is therefore, in my judgment, that proceedings brought in the County Court which are required to be before the High Court must be sent there and that other proceedings brought in the County Court may be sent to the High Court. Section 42(2) does not, in my judgment, exclude from the discretion to transfer cases to this court situations such as the present where an enactment specifies that an appeal should be brought in the County Court. The words “subject to such provision” in subsection (2) merely serve to exclude, from the otherwise general power to transfer proceedings before the County Court to this court, cases to which subsection (1) applies, i.e. where the relevant legislation requires proceedings to be before the High Court. There is, in my judgment, no such jurisdictional difficulty as is now suggested by Ms Rowlands with the transfer of an appeal under section 204 of the 1996 Act to this court; indeed, I note that this point does not appear to have been raised in any previous case where a statutory housing appeal has been transferred from the County Court to this court.

9

During oral argument, Ms Rowlands requested that I should give guidance to judges of the County Court about when it might be appropriate to transfer statutory housing appeals to this court. I decline to give any such guidance. The issue of whether this appeal should or should not have been transferred by the County Court to this court might have been addressed by the Respondent in a number of ways, including in particular by seeking to set aside or otherwise to challenge the order made by Judge Vavrecka. That was not done. Nor did Ms Rowlands make any application to me, in the alternative to the argument on jurisdiction, to transfer the appeal back to the County Court. In those circumstances, there is no issue before me as to the appropriateness of the order for transfer. It is neither necessary nor appropriate in these circumstances for me to attempt to give any sort of guidance to judges of the County Court in this regard.

Factual background

10

The Appellant is now 29 years old. On 17 January 2019, he was granted a licence of a room at the YMCA hostel in Watford. On 22...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT