R Wood v Secretary of State for Justice
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Justice Fulford,Mr Justice Nicol |
| Judgment Date | 29 July 2014 |
| Neutral Citation | [2014] EWHC 2825 (Admin) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | CO/1124/2014 |
| Date | 29 July 2014 |
[2014] EWHC 2825 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
DIVISIONAL COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London WC2A 2LL
Lord Justice Fulford
Mr Justice Nicol
CO/1124/2014
The Claimant appeared in person (via video link)
Ms V Ailes (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared on behalf of the Defendant
I ask my Lord, Nicol J, to give the first judgment.
This is a renewed application for permission to apply for judicial review after a refusal on the papers by Irwin J.
In June 2006 the claimant was convicted of two counts of rape and one of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 1159 days. He appealed against conviction. One of the grounds alleged incompetent representation at his trial. The appeal was dismissed by the Court of Appeal Criminal Division on 21 February 2008 (see R v Lewis Wood [2008] EWCA Crim 587, Moses LJ, Cranston J and the Recorder of Liverpool). To a limited extent the court accepted the criticisms of his trial counsel. Nonetheless, the court held that the convictions were safe. Since the Court of Appeal can only allow an appeal against conviction if the conviction is unsafe (see Criminal Appeal Act 1968, section 2(1)(a)), it follow that the claimant's appeal was dismissed.
The claimant complained to the Bar Standards Board about the conduct of his trial by his counsel. On 12 August 2009 the Bar Standards Board made a finding adverse to counsel, ordered that he should apologise and required him to undertake a period of retraining. Although we do not have the correspondence, the claimant says he asked the Court of Appeal to certify a point of law of public importance so that he could appeal against its decision. Such a certificate is a necessary condition of an appeal to what was the House of Lords and is now the Supreme Court (see Criminal Appeal Act 1968, section 33(2)). The claimant says that his solicitor was notified by the court that a certificate had been refused. The claimant submitted a further note to the Court of Appeal again seeking a certificate. We do have a copy of the Court of Appeal's order of 30 July 2013 refusing to certify that a point of law of general public importance was involved in the decision.
In September 2013 the claimant, through his MP, made submissions to the Ministry of Justice arguing that the single test of safety which an appellant against conviction had to satisfy was contrary to Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights ("ECHR"). Furthermore, he submitted the need for him to obtain a certificate from the Court of Appeal before he could appeal to what is now the Supreme Court was a further denial of his right to a fair hearing. He also observed that the position was different in Scotland, where a person who wished to appeal to the Supreme Court against a decision of the High Court of Justiciary in a criminal case did not need to obtain a certificate. There was, therefore, he argued, discrimination against people, him, who sought to challenge the equivalent court in England and Wales. He asked the Ministry of Justice to take remedial action.
In a letter which was sent on, or just before, 31 October 2013, the Policing and Criminal Justice Minister, the Right Honourable Damian Green MP, replied. He said that he was confident that the present system of criminal appeals was consistent with Article 6 of the ECHR. The Court of Appeal had concluded that the claimant's conviction was safe. The procedure for certification was an appropriate filter on the cases that were presented to the Supreme Court and had been found to be compatible with the ECHR by the Court of Appeal in R v Dunn [2010] EWCA Crim 1823 and by the Strasbourg Court in Dunn v UK [2013] 56 EHRR 63. The position in Scotland was not comparable. The High Court of Justiciary was the final Court of Appeal in criminal matters in Scotland. What could be taken further to the Supreme Court was an issue as to whether the decisions of the Scottish public authorities were compatible with the ECHR. The different constitutional arrangements justified the different procedures. It is this decision by the Minister which the claimant seeks to challenge by this application for judicial review which he brought on 13 March 2014.
He argues that...
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