Latest Cases

Arbitration – Award. The Commercial Court held that, in a dispute over an arbitrator's findings in a shipping case, although the arbitrator had been wrong not to recognise his jurisdiction over the dispute, he would in any case have rejected the claimant's contention about it, and so the claimant's application to set the award aside would be dismissed. 

Contract – Construction. The Technology and Construction Court made declarations as to the interpretation of an agreement between the parties, where a dispute had arisen as to the awarding of 'service points' regarding the work carried out by the defendant company on the claimant local authority's highways. 

Housing – Local authority houses. The parties had entered into a joint tenancy of a local authority flat prior to the breakdown of their relationship. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in dismissing the appellant's appeal against an order transferring the tenancy into the sole name of the respondent, held that the judge had had to make a difficult decision on the balance of hardship and there had been no error of law in the way that he had struck the balance. 

Extradition – Discharge of fugitive. After the claimant's extradition had been ordered, he applied for discharge on the basis that no reasonable cause for the delay in removing him had been shown. The judge refused the application, as a clerical error had been a reasonable cause and the claimant sought judicial review. The Divisional Court, in allowing the application, held that the judge had not adopted the requisite rigorous approach. As it was not obvious that there had only been one decision open to the judge, the matter was remitted for reconsideration by a different judge. 

Civil aviation – Air accident – Combined voice and flight data recorder (CVFDR) – Disclosure. Court of Session: Granting an application in which the Lord Advocate petitioned the court to order the Secretary of State for Transport to make available to him and Police Scotland the combined voice and flight data recorder (CVFDR) which a helicopter which crashed into sea, killing four passengers, was carrying, the court held that the data contained in the CVFDR were strictly necessary for the purposes of the police investigation into the accident, and that the benefits of disclosure outweighed the adverse domestic and international impact that disclosure might have on the current investigation by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch of the Department for Transport and any future safety investigation. 

Immigration – Removal. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division held, inter alia, that s 3C(4) of the Immigration Act 1971 precluded an application for variation of leave 'while that leave is extended by virtue of this section' and, like s 3C(2), was consistent only with a continuation of the leave that existed before the application. The provision in s 10(8) of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, that the notification 'invalidates any leave … previously given to him', was to make it clear that its effect was that, from the date of the notification, that which had previously been done was undone. It was not implicitly drawing a distinction between leave pursuant to s 3 and leave pursuant to s 3C of the 1971 Act. 

Legal aid – Entitlement. The Official Solicitor sought judicial review of the exceptional case funding (ECF) scheme on the basis that it failed to properly deal with claims made by those who lacked capacity. The Administrative Court, in allowing the application, held that the ECF scheme did not ensure that applicants' human rights were not breached or were not likely to be breached, in particular, the relevant forms were far too complex. Further, the rigidity of the merits test and the manner in which it was applied were wholly unsatisfactory. 

Advocate – Complaint – Inadequate professional services. Court of Session: Allowing an advocate's appeal against a decision of the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission upholding a complaint against him, the court held that the Commission had made at least one fundamental error, over and above the accepted inadequacy of the reasons given for the decision; that there was no good reason to remit the matter to the Commission for a fresh adjudication; and that it should substitute its own decision for that of the Commission, namely that the advocate did not provide an inadequate professional service. 

Mental health – Court of Protection. The Court of Protection considered several cases before it in the light of guidance from the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal on the subject of deprivation of liberty in the context of Sch 1A of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 which contained a scheme whereby a managing authority of a hospital or care home was allowed to deprive a patient or resident of his or her liberty. 

Town and country planning – Permission for development. The claimant applied to quash the decision of the inspector appointed by the first defendant Secretary of State to dismiss his appeal against the refusal of planning permission for the change of use of land for a caravan site. The Planning Court, in dismissing the appeal, held that there had been ample evidence upon which the inspector had been entitled to reach his conclusions and it was apparent that the identified highway safety risks had existed independently of any driver error. The weight which the inspector had accorded to highway safety was both rational and within the legitimate scope of his judgment.