R (the Lord Chancellor) v Chief Land Registrar
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 15 July 2005 |
| Neutral Citation | [2005] EWHC 1706 (Admin) |
| Date | 15 July 2005 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
Before Mr Justice Stanley Burnton
Leases - leaseholds cannot be transferred
The Lord Chancellor had no power to transfer to central government a lease of that part of a local authority building that was used as a magistrates court.
Mr Justice Stanley Burnton so held in the Queen's Bench Division in refusing the application of the Lord Chancellor for judicial review by way of a declaration of the refusal of the Chief Land Registrar on March 7, 2005 to register leases purportedly granted under Schedule 2 to the Courts Act 2003. The London Borough of Barking and Dagenham was joined as an interested party.
In accordance with powers conferred by Schedule 2 the Lord Chancellor had transferred large numbers of magistrates courts which occupied the whole of buildings from ownership and administration by local government and local committees to ownership by central government.
Where part-occupied buildings were divided vertically the relevant part was transferred. In about 50 instances court buildings were horizontally occupied by courts and there the Lord Chancellor purported to transfer leases to central government.
Mr Timothy Mould for the Lord Chancellor; Mr Philip Jones for the Chief Land Registrar; Miss Leigh-Ann Mulcahy for Barking.
MR JUSTICE STANLEY BURNTON said that the Lord Chancellor sought a declaration as to his power to create new leases under the 2003 Act.
He had purported to create a 999-year lease on the ground floor of the annexe to Barking Magistrates Court. There was a redevelopment plan.
Barking was seeking to regenerate the area.
The difficulty was that where a 999-year lease was purportedly effected under the Act there was no power to terminate the right of occupation conferred by the lease.
The issue was whether the Lord Chancellor had power under Schedule 2 to effect grant by a local authority of a lease of only that part of the building which was a magistrates court.
What power had been conferred on the Lord Chancellor? Parliament had conferred power to transfer property but that was not a power to create or confer leases.
His Lordship considered that the context was transfer of property rights or liabilities. What was transferred by the transfer of property was the bundle of rights and duties associated with the building. The Lord Chancellor had no power under Schedule 2 to transfer grant of new leases of magistrates courts.
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Public Prosecutor v Lam Leng Hung and others
...R (on the application of the Lord Chancellor) v Chief Land Register (Barking and Dagenham London Borough Council, interested party) [2005] EWHC 1706 (Admin), [2005] 4 All ER 643, per Stanley Burnton J at [23]]. [emphasis added in bold italics] These two illustrations are worthy of considera......
-
The Symbiosis of Property and English Environmental Law – Property Rights in a Public Law Context
...Pulp And PaperCompany vNew Brunswick Electric Power Commission [1928] AC 492, 498–499; R (Lord Chancellor)vChief Land Registrar [2005] EWHC 1706 (Admin) at [35]; [2006] QB 795, 805.122 HRA, s 6.123 See eg Buckland vSecretary of State [2001] EWHC Admin 524.124 Gray, ‘Can Environmental Regula......
-
Law and the Polarization of American Politics
...N.Y. times, Jan. 13, 1999, at Al 1 (television coverage of California gubernatorial race shrank); Editorial, The Last Anchor, N.Y. Times, Aug. 9, 2005, at A18 ("network news operations are less well financed, less powerful and less likely to send an expensive team of cameras and producers t......
-
Do Partisan Elections of Judges Produce Unequal Justice When Courts Review Employment Arbitrations?
...(discussing the extent to which states have adopted the RUAA). [122] See RUAA and UMA Legislation from Coast to Coast, DISP. RESOL. TIMES, Aug. 31, 2005, http://www.adr.org/sp.asp?id=26600 (stating that Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, ......
-
Learning from Katrina: emphasizing the right to a speedy trial to protect constitutional guarantees in disasters.
...& N.R. Kleinfield, Hurricane Katrina: New Orleans is Inundated as 2 Levees Fail; Much of Gulf Coast is Crippled; Toll Rises, N.Y. TIMES, Aug. 31, 2005, at A1 ("[New Orleans] Mayor Ray Nagin lamented that while the city had dodged the worst-case scenario on Monday[,] Tuesday was 'the sec......