R (Robertson) v First Secretary of State
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Maurice Kay |
| Judgment Date | 21 July 2003 |
| Neutral Citation | [2003] EWHC 1760 (Admin) |
| Date | 21 July 2003 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | Case No: CO/3417/2002 |
[2003] EWHC 1760 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEENS BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE MAURICE KAY
Case No: CO/3417/2002
The Claimant did not appear and was not represented
Jonathan Crow and Steven Kovats (instructed by Treasury Solicitor) for the Defendant
David Pannick QC and Claire Weir (instructed by Addleshaw Goddard) for the Interested Parties.
The origins of this case are to be found in R (Robertson)) v. Wakefield MDC [2002] QB 1052 ( Robertson No 1), in which I held that the practice of selling the electoral register for direct marketing purposes without affording an individual elector a right of objection was a disproportionate interference with the individual's right to respect for private life under Article 8 of the ECHR and that, to the extent that the prevailing Regulations made the right to vote conditional upon acquiescence in the practice with no right of objection, they also involved an unjustified and disproportionate restriction on the right to vote by reference to Article 3 of the First Protocol. In the light of that decision, an amendment was made to the Representation of the People (England and Wales) Regulations 2001 by the Representation of the People (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2002. The position now is that Electoral Registration Officers maintain two registers – the full register (which is open to public inspection and copies of which are available by purchase or otherwise to certain persons and bodies subject to restrictions) and the edited register (which excludes the names and addresses of those electors who have requested to be excluded from the edited register and which is generally available for purchase). In the present case, the same Mr. Robertson has permission to apply for judicial review in relation to a provision in the amended Regulations which deals with the sale of the full register to credit reference agencies. Regulation 114 of the 2001 Regulations (as amended by Regulation 15 of the 2002 Regulations) is in the following terms:
"Subject to regulation 112(2)…, the registration officer shall supply on request and on payment of a fee calculated in accordance with regulation 111….copies of a relevant document to a credit reference agency which is registered under Part III of the Consumer Credit Act 1974…..and which is carrying on the business of providing credit reference services.
(2) For the purposes of regulation 112(3)…, the relevant restrictions apply except for the purposes set out in paragraph (3) below.
(3) Those purposes are –
(a) vetting applications for credit or applications that can result in the giving of credit or the giving of any guarantee, indemnity or assurance in relation to the giving of credit;
(b) meeting any obligation contained in the Money Laundering Regulations 1993, the Money Laundering Regulations 2001 or any rules made pursuant to section 146 of the Financial Services and Market Act, 2000; and
(c) statistical analysis of credit risk assessment in a case where no person whose details are included in the full register is referred to by name or necessary implication.
(4) The registration officer may require a credit reference agency to provide such evidence that it is carrying on the business of providing credit reference services as he shall reasonably require."
Mr. Robertson's challenge to regulation 114 is put in two ways. First, it is said that my judgment in the earlier case makes it clear that all sales of the full register to commercial concerns are unlawful and that regulation 114 is inconsistent with that judgment. Secondly, even if the point was left open in the earlier case, regulation 114 still falls foul of Article 3 of the First Protocol.
Shortly before the Court assembled for the hearing of the application on 19 May, the Administrative Court Office received a copy of an e-mail sent that morning by Mr. Robertson to the Treasury Solicitor. It refers to funding difficulties regarding legal representation. As to that, the position is that Mr. Robertson commenced these proceedings in person and, although he was granted permission to apply by Sullivan J, the Legal Services Commission has refused to fund him. He has received two unfavourable opinions from highly respected counsel – one Queen's Counsel and one junior – and his equally respected solicitors are unable to take the matter further. Other firms have declined to act. The e-mail stated that he was not fit enough to travel from Yorkshire for the listed hearing and that he cannot afford to do so.
I should refer to the listing history of this case. Permission was granted at a hearing on 4 November 2002, Sullivan J warning Mr. Robertson that
"you may well face an uphill path. It is a rather steeper uphill path than you faced last time."
Expedition was ordered, I suspect in deference to the commercial interests of the interested parties. The case was listed to be heard on 12 and 13 February 2003 but that listing was vacated on the application of Mr. Robertson who was seeking to resolve his funding problem with the Legal Services Commission. On 24 February I directed that the case be heard on the first available date after 10 April, having regard to the convenience of counsel and Mr. Robertson. In the meantime, another challenge to Regulation 114 was being processed in the Administrative Court Office. The Claimant is I-CD Publishing Limited and its complaint is not that Regulation 114 is too permissive (Mr. Robertson's case) but that it is too restrictive. On 27 February Jack J ordered that there should be a joint directions hearing in the two cases. This took place on 12 March before Hooper J who ordered that the two cases should be heard consecutively, commencing on 19 May, with Mr. Robertson's case being heard first. He also ordered Mr. Robertson to produce a paginated trial bundle by 28 April and a skeleton argument by 1 May. Mr. Robertson has not complied with those orders. His energies have continued to be applied to the issue of funding. On 1 April the Legal Services Commission funded a further opinion of junior counsel, notwithstanding the unfavourable opinion of leading counsel which had been provided in January. As I have related, it seems that the opinion of junior counsel was also unfavourable.
On 22 April Mr. Robertson lodged an application, without notice to the Secretary of State or the Interested Parties, for the proceedings to be stayed pending the resolution of his funding problem. I directed that he give notice of the application to the other parties...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Green Corns Ltd v Claverley Group Ltd
...(Robertson) v Wakefield MDC [2001] EWHC Admin 915; [2002] QB 1052 [29]–[34] and R (Robertson) v Secretary of State for Home Department [2003] EWHC 1760. The first of those cases (as Maurice Kay J summarised it in the second) concerned the use of information on electoral registers. Maurice ......
-
The Registrar of Companies v Angela Swarbrick and Others
...in accordance with Art 8. See R (Robertson) v Wakefield MDC [2001] EWHC Admin 915; [2002] QB 1052 [29]-[34] and R (Robertson) v Secretary of State for Home Department [2003] EWHC 1760. The first of those cases (as Maurice Kay J summarised it in the second) concerned the use of information ......
-
Junior Police Officers’association Of The Hong Kong Police Force And Another v Electoral Affairs Commission And Others
...is indirect and limited. The right to vote is not taken away or substantially curtailed. In R (Robinson) v Secretary of State [2003] EWHC 1760 (Admin), it was held that a regulation[56] which permitted the full register of electors to be sold to credit agencies only constituted a limited in......
-
The news media's influence on criminal justice policy: how market-driven news promotes punitiveness.
...caused by increased coverage of terrorism and the War in Iraq. Jim Rutenberg, Suffering News Burnout? Rest of America Is, Too, N.Y. TIMES, Aug. 11, 2003, at (374.) The Bureau of Justice Statistics reported in September 2005 that the "[v]ictimization rates for every major type of crime measu......