Latest Cases

Criminal law – Trial. The Divisional Court allowed the claimant's application for judicial review of the defendant Crown Court's ruling that no member of the public could make notes of the proceedings without permission. The default position was that those who attended public court hearings should be free to make notes of what occurred and the paramount question for a judge, if considering withdrawing that liberty, was whether the note-taking in question would be likely to interfere with the proper administration of justice. 

Family proceedings – Orders in family proceedings. The Family Division refused an application made by the paternal uncle of two young children for leave to revoke placement orders. The court held that there probably had been a change of circumstances, but, in considering the second stage, namely, whether the discretion to grant leave should be exercised, in all the circumstances, the application would be refused. 

Constitutional law – Separation of powers. The Privy Council held that the retrospective repeal of a statutory limitation period for criminal prosecutions in Trinidad and Tobago had been constitutionally valid, in particular, it had not breached the principle of the separation of powers, the rule of law or due process. Further, there had been no abuse of process in the appellants' continued prosecution, and the Director of Public Prosecutions had not been in breach of the duties of impartiality and objectivity by the continued prosecution of the appellants. 

Personal Injury: o Personal Injury: Quantum Case. Road traffic accident. PSLA of £11,000 with total damages of £12,500 awarded. 

Personal Injury: Quantum Case. Road traffic accident. PSLA of £1,100 awarded. 

Pleading – Amendment. The Queen's Bench Division refused the claimants' application for permission to amend their particulars of claim in their claim alleging defamation and malicious falsehood for reasons including that the proposed amendments could not stand in their present form, included bare assertions, 'smuggles in' a new allegation which needed to be made good by a direct pleading to the effect, if there was evidence to justify it and served no useful purpose. 

Creation of trust – Declaration of trust. The Chancery Division allowed the claimants' application to make final an interim charging order over property owned by the first defendant, whose election as the mayor of Tower Hamlets had been declared void. The court held that the Stack approach to the purchase of a domestic property would not apply when property had been brought for letting. Among other things, the proper approach when considering the property was to follow the classic resulting trust doctrine by looking at the actual contributions to the purchase price. On the evidence, the second defendant, who was R's wife, had not made out her case that she had made substantial contributions to the purchase price, and it followed that she could not establish a resulting trust. 

Negligence – Professional person. The Queen's Bench Division held in a case of professional negligence brought by the claimant against her counsel and solicitor following a settlement in a personal injury case that the defendants had not been negligent in advising her to take the settlement. 

Practice – Summary judgment. The Chancery Division, in granting the claimants' application for summary judgment, ruled that they were entitled to specific performance of agreements for the assignment to them of patents concerning technology used for eliminating airborne pathogens. The defendants had to do as they had agreed and execute the assignment documentation and there had been no condition precedent in the agreements that the obligation to assign the patents did not arise unless and until royalties had been paid, either in whole or in part. 

Town and country planning – Permission for development. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, dismissed the claimant's appeal against the dismissal of its claim for judicial review of the grant of planning permission by the defendant local planning authority for a mixed use development. The court considered the correct approach which the present court should adopt in relation to the exercise of discretion by the judge in a case of the present kind, and held that the criticisms of the judgment itself could not be sustained and did not show that the decision had been 'wrong'.