Pelling v Families Need Fathers Ltd
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE SCHIEMANN |
| Judgment Date | 22 April 2002 |
| Neutral Citation | [2002] EWCA Civ 699 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 22 April 2002 |
[2002] EWCA Civ 699
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE A3/2002/0581
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM CHANCERY DIVISION
(MR JUSTICE LAWRENCE COLLINS)
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London WC2
Lord Justice Schiemann
The Applicant appeared in person
The Defendant did not attend and was unrepresented
Monday, 22nd April 2002
Dr Pelling seeks permission to appeal from a judgment of Collins J in relation to a matter which concerns access to company records. The basis of his case is a very simple one. It is the provisions of section 356 of the Companies Act 1985, which provides that the register and index of members of a company shall be open to the inspection of any member of the company without charge; and the provision in the same section that any member of the company may require a copy of the register on payment of such fee as may be prescribed. He drew attention to the provision of subsection (6) that in the case of any refusal or default to supply a copy or inspection the court may by order compel an immediate inspection of the register and direct that copies required be sent to the persons requiring them.
What has happened in substance is this. Dr Pelling sought to inspect a particular register, and he failed to obtain an order from the court to allow him to do so, the court ruling that it had a discretion in the matter and for reasons which seemed good to the court it refused to exercise that discretion in his favour. That decision was upheld by the Court of Appeal, and Dr Pelling, who is very assiduous in his research, sought in a long and well argued petition to their Lordship's House for permission to appeal in relation to the furnishing of copies, which was the issue in the first case. That permission was refused. He then applied this time for an order that he be permitted to inspect. That order was refused by Collins J on the giving of certain undertakings by the company. The details of it are set out in Collins J's judgment. It is right to say that Collins J was clearly influenced in his decision by the fact that nearly, but not quite the same point, had been litigated previously to the Court of Appeal and that the House of Lords had refused permission, and he took it that he was bound by the Court of Appeal decision, as indeed he was.
Before me Dr Pelling takes a number of points, but his chief points are these. The first one relates to a provision in the Bill of Rights. He says that in part, the Court of Appeal in its previous decision has departed from the Bill of Rights and in those circumstances a future court should not be bound by the earlier decision of the Court of Appeal because Statute trumps courts'...
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