Latest Cases

Police – Investigation of crime. On references by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, pursuant to s 9 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995, the Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, held that the defendants' convictions for murder and manslaughter had not been rendered unsafe. Amongst other things, the new evidence, which had not been available at the time of the defendants' trials, had not, in the circumstances, impacted upon the safety of the convictions. 

Family proceedings – Orders in family proceedings. The Family Division allowed the application of the local authority's application to order that a seven year old child AA have a device fitted on medical advice in order to prevent the impact of any further heart-attacks. In granting the order, so ordering the court went against the wishes of the parents having decided that it was in the child's best interests to have the device implanted. 

European Union – Customs duties. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling concerning the interpretation of r 3(b) of the General Rules for the interpretation of the Combined Nomenclature in Annex I to Council Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87, as amended by Commission Regulation (EC) No 1214/2007. The request had been made in proceedings between VAD BVBA and its managing director and Belgium, concerning the tariff classification of combined video-audio systems and loudspeakers. 

Immigration – Leave to enter. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, allowed the appellant Indian citizen's appeal against a decision by the Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) refusing him permission to bring judicial review proceedings in respect of a decision made by an Entry Clearance Officer (ECO) in Mumbai, on behalf of the respondent Secretary of State, refusing him a business visitor visa to the United Kingdom. Among other things, it considered how an ECO should deal with a second application based on different evidence to that furnished where an earlier application had been refused, under para 320(7A) of the Immigration Rules, before making a decision under para 320(7B) of the Rules. 

Extradition – Extradition order. The Divisional Court dismissed the appellant's appeal against the decision of a district judge to order his extradition to Spain, pursuant to a European arrest warrant, to face a charge of rape. The court held that the district judge's conclusion that the delay by the Spanish Judicial Authority did not prevent the appellant from having a fair trial and he had correctly concluded in respect of art 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights that the public interests in extradition outweighed the factors against it and he had rightly concluded that the appellant had failed to establish abuse of process. 

Solicitor – Dishonesty. The Chancery Division dismissed the claimant's application to withdraw the defendant Law Society's intervention into her solicitor's practice where, on the evidence, there was good reason to suspect that she had been dishonest by the ordinary standards of reasonable and honest people and that she had realised that, by those standards, her conduct had been dishonest. 

Company – Insolvency. The Chancery Division dismissed an application seeking declarations that the appointment of the first three respondents as joint administrators of a company had been a nullity because of an alleged prior floating charge in favour of another company. The court allowed a cross-application by the respondents, the joint administrators and Nationwide Building society, to strike out the substantive application having found that Nationwide's predecessor (Derbyshire), had had a qualifying floating charge for the purposes of s 251 of the Insolvency Act 1986, which Nationwide had acquired and that the company had never acquired the hotel in question and its adjoining land otherwise than subject to the terms of Derbyshire's legal charge and debenture. Accordingly, nothing had had the effect of depriving the Derbyshire debenture of its status of a floating charge as created and Nationwide had not been not precluded from making the appointment of the joint administrators. 

Costs – Order for costs. The Queen's Bench Division ruled on liability for costs, pursuant to CPR 36.13(5), following the claimant's acceptance in February 2016 of the defendant NHS trust's CPR Pt 36 offer, which offer had, in fact, expired in June 2015, it having been made earlier that month. 

Family proceedings – Human Rights. The Family Division granted an application for a declaration by a 16 year old person that the adoptive parents receive no information about his day-to-day life, nor about how his gender reassignment treatment was progressing. In so doing the judge engaged in a balancing of the parties respective rights under art 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights. 

Insolvency – Bankruptcy – Balancing of accounts in bankruptcy. Sheriff Court: In a commercial action in which the pursuer sued for payment of three liquid sums the defender had agreed to pay in settlement of three payment protection insurance (PPI) claims by the pursuer against it, and which the defender now refused to pay, arguing it was entitled to withhold payment of the liquid sums and to set them off against greater alleged indebtedness said to be due by the pursuer to it under loan contracts entered into many years earlier—in the period between the dates of the loan contracts and related PPI sales (in 1997 and 2003) and the dates of the PPI agreements (in 2014) the pursuer having become insolvent and granted a trust deed in favour of her creditors, the defender having submitted claims in the trust deed for payment of roughly the same aggregate indebtedness now founded upon by way of set‑off, the pursuer's trustee having adjudicated on those claims, the defender having received payment of dividends on the claims and, in 2012, the pursuer having been discharged from the trust deed—the court held that the defender was entitled to plead set-off by application of the principle of balancing of accounts in bankruptcy.