R Butt v Secretary of State for the Home Department
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Cranston |
| Judgment Date | 28 January 2014 |
| Neutral Citation | [2014] EWHC 264 (Admin) |
| Docket Number | CO/5676/2013, CO/6477/2013, CO/17439/2013, CO/17450/2013 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Date | 28 January 2014 |
[2014] EWHC 264 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
DIVISIONAL COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London WC2A 2LL
THE PRESIDENT OF THE QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
( Sir Brian Leveson)
Mr Justice Cranston
CO/5676/2013, CO/6477/2013, CO/17439/2013, CO/17450/2013
Mr Andreas Pretzell (instructed by M&K Solicitors) appeared on behalf of the First Claimant
Mr Zeeshan Mian (Solicitor Advocate) (instructed by Denning Solicitors) appeared on behalf of the Second Claimant
Miss Samantha Broadfoot (instructed by Eden Solicitors) appeared on behalf of the Third Claimant
Mr Andreas Pretzell (instructed by Malik & Malik Solicitors) appeared on behalf of the Fourth Claimant
THE PRESIDENT OF THE QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION: In R ex parte Hamid v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] EWHC 3070 (Admin), the then President of the Queen's Bench Division Sir John Thomas, now Lord Chief Justice, delivered a judgment of the court in which he made the point at paragraph 10 that meritless applications by people who face removal or deportation are an intolerable waste of public money, a great strain on the resources of this court and an abuse of a service this court offers. He went on to observe that:
"The court therefore intends to take the most vigorous action against any legal representatives who fail to comply with its rules. If people persist in failing to follow the procedural requirements, they must realise that this court will not hesitate to refer those concerned to the Solicitors Regulation Authority."
In subsequent decisions Awuku (No 2) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] EWHC 3690 (Admin) and B & J v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] EWHC 3770 (Admin), Sir John identified the importance of compliance with professional obligations and the need for appropriate scrutiny by qualified lawyers, particularly in relation to applications on an ex parte basis.
It should not be thought that the approach which the then President initiated has in any sense fallen into desuetude following his appointment as Chief Justice. In my judgment, it remains equally critical that solicitors who work in this field make applications only when based upon a proper consideration of the evidence, having assembled appropriate proof and taken care to ensure that the time of the court is not being wasted. If a firm is called to show cause in the future, the first occasion may very well be met with an opportunity to address failings. That opportunity will have to be seized and is likely to consist of a requirement for training and a report back to the Administrative Court of steps taken in that regard. Normally a second, and even more so a third, reference to this court is likely to lead to the papers being dispatched to the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
In these days of austerity, the court simply cannot afford to spend unnecessary time on processing abusive applications; still less is it a proper use of the time of out-of-hours and overnight judges, hard pressed at the very best of times, to deal with such applications. All those who practise in this field ought to be warned, because the most serious failings will not necessarily lead to this stepped approach but may lead directly to reference to the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
With those words, I deal shortly with the applications before the court today. The first, R (Butt) v Secretary of State for the Home Department, concerns M & K Solicitors, who had not previously come to the attention of this court but whose application was considered to be totally without merit and an abuse of process because the relevant decision was taken as long ago as 2010, with the pre-action protocol letter being dated 15 November 2012 and the claim issued 10 May 2013. Dealing with the application for permission, Cranston J said:
"All this simply beggars belief and to suggest that this was an ongoing refusal of the Secretary of State which somehow justifies coming to the court almost three years after the decisions being challenged demonstrates a level of incompetence which the senior partner of the firm can explain to the Divisional Court."
It is commonplace that applications for judicial review must be made as soon as possible and no later than three months after the relevant decision. Of course there is liberty in certain circumstances to extend time, but to believe that such an extension could be granted after three years is utterly to fail to recognise the importance of speed and expedition in this court. It has not been suggested that the application was not an abuse of process.
In addition, reliance was placed upon an extremely scruffy handwritten letter from a bank. The circumstances do not matter, but it is not surprising either that the Secretary of State or that the court should have been extremely concerned as to the origins of this letter. To say that to produce such a document necessarily reverses the burden of proof equally misunderstands...
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... [2012] EWHC 3070 Admin. The third of those appearances was in 2014 in R (Butt) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2014] EWHC 264 Admin, when the President of the Queen's Bench Division, Sir Brian Leveson, said as follows in paragraphs 16 to 18 of his judgment: “16. The final ca......
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