R v Derbyshire CC ex parte Times Supplements
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 18 July 1990 |
| Date | 18 July 1990 |
| Court | Divisional Court |
Queen's Bench Divisional Court
Before Lord Justice Watkins and Mr Justice Tudor Evans
Local government - maladministration - advertising
Derbyshire County Council was activated by bad faith or vindictiveness in deciding to move its advertising from The Times Educational Supplement (TES) to The Guardian. Its action was an abuse of power contrary to the public good.
The council had been unable to give any educational reason for its decision to impose a general ban on papers owned by Mr Rupert Murdoch following an alleged libel of its leader by The Sunday Times.
The council had deliberately sought to mislead the court as to the true reasons for the decisions made by its education committee and by the full council. The decisions were a bad example of local authority maladministration which was potentially if not actually harmful to the interests of education in Derbyshire.
The Queen's Bench Divisional Court so held in granting the applicants, The Times Supplements Ltd, News International plc, Times Newspapers Ltd and Pauleen Elizabeth Lathem, a Conservative county councillor, an order of certiorari to quash the council's decision to change its practice of advertising educational appointments nationally in the TES, and not to place advertising in publications owned by the applicants or Mr Murdoch.
In addition, the court also granted the applicants a declaration that the decisions were made unlawfully and ultra vires and an injunction to restrain the council from implementing those decisions. The court also ordered taxation of costs on an indemnity basis.
Section 38 of the Education (No 2) Act 1986 provides:
"(1) The articles of government for every county, controlled, special agreement and maintained special school shall provide for it to be the duty of the local education authority, where there is a vacancy in any post which is part of the complement of the school … (b) to advertise the vacancy, and fill it in accordance with the procedure laid down by virtue of subsection (3) below…
"(3) The articles of government for every such school shall provide (a) for it to be the duty of the authority, where they decide to advertise the vacancy, to do so in a manner likely in their opinion to bring it to the notice of persons (including employees of theirs) who are qualified to fill the post."
Mr Anthony Lester, QC and Mr David Pannick for the applicants; Mr Alan Newman, QC and Mr Antony White for the council.
LORD JUSTICE WATKINS said the Labour Party had a substantial majority on the county council. Councillor Bookbinder, the council leader, was a very forceful and influential local politician.
He had chosen not to give evidence. But his chief executive, Mr Raine, had provided an affidavit, as had the council's head of research and intelligence, Mr Elton, and their deputy head of legal services, Mr Million. A number of Labour councillors had provided affidavits.
Mr Raine, together with Councillors Stafford, Dinah Dorrell, the Labour whip, Cannon and Bratt, had been cross-examined by Mr Lester.
The councillors had maintained that the decision to impose the bans was taken solely upon educational grounds.
Labour group rules provided that save where the matter had been left to a free vote (a rare event indeed) group members might not in committee or council...
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Joanna Trafford v Blackpool Borough Council
...the Murdoch group, and also because in such circumstances the decision was irrational. 65 The third is that of R v Derbyshire County Council ex parte Times Supplements Limited (1990) 3 Admin LR 241, where the local authority ceased placing advertisements in Times publications because the ne......