Category Archives: case law

Cryogenics and the Courts

Posted on November 18, 2016 by suesspiciousminds

 

 

 

This case has attracted a lot of Press attention, and as ever, not all of it is terribly accurate reporting. Most of the headlines have been along the theme of “girl wins right to be frozen after death”

 

If you haven’t heard yet, this is a High Court case where a decision was taken about a girl who had terminal cancer and who wanted to be cryogenically frozen after her death so that if there was a chance in the future of her being cured that this could happen. And the conclusion of the Court was that steps could be taken after her death to comply with her wishes.

As this is a Justice Peter Jackson judgment, it is very clear and readable, and tells you lots of things that you didn’t previously know. So well worth a read.  Justice Peter Jackson is on the sort of roll that the Beatles were on between Rubber Soul and Sergeant Pepper, his entire output is extraordinary in its quality.

Re JS (Disposal of Body) 2016

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2016/2859.html

 

I think I’ll start with the very simple steer he gave to the Press which they ignored

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

25.The first thing to note is that much of the current problem arises from the fact that JS is a child, albeit a legally competent one. If she was 18, she would be able to make a will, appointing her mother as her executor, and it would then be for the mother to make arrangements for the disposal of JS’s body, no doubt in accordance with her wishes. However, children cannot make wills. My approach is therefore to try to remove the disadvantage that JS is under as result of her age. I do not intend to go further than that, as JS cannot be in a better legal position than she would be if she was an adult.

 

 

 

26.Next, it is important to approach a problem of this kind on the basis of a real situation as opposed to theoretical possibilities. When the application first came before the court, it was not clear that JS’s wishes could be carried out, because there was no information from the hospital or from the US authorities. Now that this and other information has been gathered, there is a practical plan that can be considered.

 

 

 

27.Thirdly, the court is not making orders against third parties. The position of the various organisations and authorities has been set out above. All the court is doing is to provide a means of resolving the dispute between the parents.

 

 

 

28.Fourthly, this case does not set a precedent for other cases. If another health trust was ever to be faced with a similar situation, it would be entitled to make its own judgment about what was acceptable in respect of a patient in its care, and it might very well reach a different conclusion, as might another court. There are clearly a number of serious ethical issues, and I have received information about procedures performed on the body after death that would be disturbing to many people.

 

 

 

29.Fifthly, I am acutely aware that this case gives rise to a large number of issues that cannot be investigated in the course of a hearing of this kind. If regulation is required, there would need to be consultation with a wide range of interested parties. That is a matter for others. This court is faced with a situation that needs immediate determination on the basis of the best available information. For the future, I shall direct that the papers in this case shall be released to the HTA on the basis that the identity of the family and the hospital trust will remain confidential.

 

30.Lastly, I cannot emphasise enough what this case is not about. It is not about whether cryonic preservation has any scientific basis or whether it is right or wrong. The court is not approving or encouraging cryonics, still less ordering that JS’s body should be cryonically preserved.

 

31.Nor is this case about whether JS’s wishes are sensible or not. We are all entitled to our feelings and beliefs about our own life and death, and none of us has the right to tell anyone else – least of all a young person in JS’s position – what they must think.

 

32.All this case is about is providing a means by which the uncertainty about what can happen during JS’s lifetime and after her death can be resolved so far as possible. JS cannot expect automatic acceptance of her wishes, but she is entitled to know whether or not they can be acted upon by those who will be responsible for her estate after her death. It would be unacceptable in principle for the law to withhold its answer until after she had died. Also, as a matter of practicality, argument about the preservation issue cannot be delayed until after death as the process has to be started immediately if it is to happen at all.

 

 

It is also important to know that whilst JS was a pivotal part of the case and the way it was resolved, the actual legal structure here is a dispute between her parents.  When I was hearing the case reported on the radio and TV this morning, without having read the judgment, it made no sense to talk of the child winning this ‘right’ because of course someone has to pay for the cryogenic freezing. This was a dispute between the mother who was supporting JS’s wishes, and the father who was not.

The Court was therefore resolving which of the parents’ views should prevail.  {The father’s position was quite nuanced and it is overly simplistic to just say that he was against it – after a lot of thinking, the dispute really came down to a desire to see his daughter’s body after she died, which doesn’t sound that unreasonable – but in the context of their relationship having completely broken down, it is understandable that the case couldn’t quite come to a settlement by agreement, which is a shame}

 

6.Over recent months, JS has used the internet to investigate cryonics: the freezing of a dead body in the hope that resuscitation and a cure may be possible in the distant future.

 

 

 

7.The scientific theory underlying cryonics is speculative and controversial, and there is considerable debate about its ethical implications. On the other hand, cryopreservation, the preservation of cells and tissues by freezing, is now a well-known process in certain branches of medicine, for example the preservation of sperm and embryos as part of fertility treatment. Cryonics is cryopreservation taken to its extreme.

 

 

 

8.Since the first cryonic preservation in the 1960s, the process has been performed on very few individuals, numbering in the low hundreds. There are apparently two commercial organisations in the United States and one in Russia. The costs are high, or very high, depending on the level of research into the subject’s case that is promised. The most basic arrangement (which has been chosen here) simply involves the freezing of the body in perpetuity. Even that will cost in the region of £37,000, according to the evidence in this case – about ten times as much as an average funeral. Although JS’s family is not well-off, her maternal grandparents have raised the necessary funds.

 

 

 

9.There is no doubt that JS has the capacity to bring this application. She is described by her experienced solicitor as a bright, intelligent young person who is able to articulate strongly held views on her current situation. Her social worker says that she has pursued her investigations with determination, even though a number of people have tried to dissuade her, and that she has not been coerced or steered by her family or anyone else.

 

 

 

10.JS has written this: “I have been asked to explain why I want this unusual thing done. I’m only 14 years old and I don’t want to die, but I know I am going to. I think being cryo-preserved gives me a chance to be cured and woken up, even in hundreds of years’ time. I don’t want to be buried underground. I want to live and live longer and I think that in the future they might find a cure for my cancer and wake me up. I want to have this chance. This is my wish.”

 

 

The Court had to look first at whether cryogenic freezing was actually legal in the UK, and as the storage would be in America, whether there were legal problems with shipping a frozen person to America.

 

 

 

 

 

16.I have also been taken to the old authorities on the unlawful treatment of dead bodies (see Archbold 2017 at 31.54 onwards) but it does not appear that an offence would be committed in this case; in other words, what JS wants does not seem to be illegal.

 

 

 

17.Enquiries have now been made of the United States authorities, who have confirmed that there is no prohibition on human remains being shipped to the US for cryonic preservation provided that the UK funeral director and the US commercial organisation are in communication to guarantee that local, state and federal requirements are complied with.

 

Having been quite interested in cryogenics in my younger days, I’m aware that there are considerable schools of thought that the process works better if the person undergoes the procedure whilst they are still alive, but I think that’s going to be a step too far for the Family Courts.

 

 

 

 

 

23.It is no surprise that this application is the only one of its kind to have come before the courts in this country, and probably anywhere else. It is an example of the new questions that science poses to the law, perhaps most of all to family law. Faced with such a tragic combination of childhood illness and family conflict, the court must remember that hard cases make bad law, and that natural sympathy does not alter the need for the application to be decided in accordance with established principle, or with principle correctly established.

 

 

I’m disappointed that nobody took the Judge to a comparable, if opposite case from India in 2014, which is about whether a man who has been in a freezer for several years is in fact dead or whether he is instead in ‘deep meditation’  – because his family want his remains released so they can cremate them, but the followers of this guru say he is still alive. The fact that if he is alive, the followers retain control of his $170 million fortune plays no part in that, of course.

According to one of his aides, who asked not to be named, “Maharaj has been in deep meditation. He has spent many years meditating in sub-zero temperatures in the Himalayas, there is nothing unusual in it. He will return to life as soon as he feels [ready] and we will ensure his body is preserved until then,” he said.

 

Court to Decide Whether Guru Is Dead or Just “In Deep Meditation”

 

Frozen Guru Update II

 

Sorry, sidetracked.  I’m fairly sure there has been a case this century in English law involving parents who were in dispute as to whether their son’s remains should be kept in the UK or taken to the River Ganges to be scattered, but I can’t find it. I have a strong recollection of it. Maybe it will emerge and I can add it in.  No luck so far, though there’s this sticky piece of litigation where a man took Newcastle to Court for refusing to allow open air funeral pyres http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2009/978.html

 

It turns out that a person cannot control what happens to their body after their death – because a dead body is not property, so you can’t state in a will what is to happen to it.  Williams v Williams 1882.  The wishes of the deceased may be relevant, but they don’t bind third parties.  So if you, like me, were thinking of putting in your will that you want your ashes blown into Bono’s eyes after your death, your Executors can just smile wryly and stick your ashes  in a cookie jar with a picture of Ian Rush on it, despite this being wholly against your wishes. It will be your Executors who make the arrangements for your burial/cremation/cryogenic/being shot into space like Ken Kesey.  Now, an adult can make a will and appoint someone they trust as Executor, and if JS was 18, that’s what she would have done, made a will and appointed her mother as Executor, leaving clear instructions. But as established earlier, a child can’t make a will (not even if they are Richie Rich or Mustafa Millions out of Cheeky), so that option was not available.

Thus, the mechanism here is that a person, such as a minor, who dies without a will, is that someone will apply for Letter of Administration, which then lets that person make decisions, including about arrangements for the body.

 

What the Judge did here (simplifying it as much as possible) is to make a Specific Issue Order that in relation to the dispute between the mother and father as to arrangements for JS that the mother can carry out her proposal, and that she is to have the Letters of Administration and that the father cannot apply for them, so that in effect means that JS’s wishes will happen.

 

There’s a rather sad and shabby postscript to the whole affair.

 

 

Postscript

 

65.On 7 October, the day after the hearing, I received a message from JS through her solicitor saying that she would like to meet the judge who had decided her case. I visited her in hospital that evening in the presence of her mother and we had a good discussion. I was moved by the valiant way in which she was facing her predicament.

 

 

 

66.On 17 October, JS died.

 

 

 

 

 

Part 3 – 10 November 2016

 

67.On 8 November, I received a detailed note from the solicitors for the hospital trust in which the events surrounding JS’s death are described from the point of view of the hospital. It records that JS died peacefully in the knowledge that her body would be preserved in the way she wished.

 

 

 

68.However, the note makes unhappy reading in other ways. The Trust expresses very real misgivings about what occurred on the day of JS’s death. In brief and understated summary:

 

 

 

 

(1) On JS’s last day, her mother is said to have been preoccupied with the post-mortem arrangements at the expense of being fully available to JS.

 

 

(2) The voluntary organisation is said to have been under-equipped and disorganised, resulting in pressure being placed on the hospital to allow procedures that had not been agreed. Although the preparation of JS’s body for cryogenic preservation was completed, the way in which the process was handled caused real concern to the medical and mortuary staff.

 

69.These proceedings have come to an end and I make no findings about the above matters, on which I have in any event not heard other views. I nonetheless approve the intention of the Trust to send a copy of the note and its accompanying documents to the Human Tissue Authority. It may be thought that the events in this case suggest the need for proper regulation of cryonic preservation in this country if it is to happen in future.

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When I’m sixty-four (bundles)

Posted on November 14, 2016 by suesspiciousminds

 

A permission to appeal hearing in the Court of Appeal. Where the parents did not have legal aid and

 

(A) There were Court orders that said that they couldn’t have a copy of the judgment ; and

(B) There were sixty four Court bundles  (and even whittling it down for the appeal there were still 27 just to decide the permission application)

 

Re A and B (Children) 2016

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2016/1101.html

 

 

 

The impact of confidentiality on the appeal process

 

  • For sound reasons, which are not challenged in the course of these two applications for permission to appeal, Theis J imposed a highly restrictive regime aimed at maintaining total confidentiality as to the content of her fact finding judgment and the subsequent welfare determinations that she made. In short terms mandatory orders are in place which prevent any of the lay parties from having a copy of the judgments, or any part of them, in their possession at any time. The solicitors acting for the various parties, and indeed the other professionals in the case, were required to retain any copies of the judgments securely in their possession and not to pass a copy of a judgment, or any part of it, to any of the lay parties.
  • The three applicants for permission to appeal no longer have the benefit of legal representation funded by Legal Aid. They appear before this court as litigants in person. The difficulties that they face as litigants in person attempting to challenge the judge’s highly detailed and sophisticated analysis of the factual evidence is, sadly, compounded by the fact that Mr A and Miss B in particular and, to a lesser extent, Mrs A are said to suffer from learning difficulties.
  • I considered the applicants’ applications for permission to appeal on paper soon after they had been issued. The difficulties facing each one of the three applicants was plain. The suggested “Grounds of Appeal” put forward with respect to each of the two applications was, understandably, in the most general and superficial terms. The challenge for this court and for the parties was to consider how each of these three individuals, with their limited intellectual resources and acting as litigants in person, could possibly present an effective application for permission in circumstances where they were denied personal access to copies of the judgment. The applications were therefore listed on notice to the local authority for hearing before me on 19th May 2016 so that attempts could be made to enable each of the applicants to present their proposed applications for permission through a process which was as fair and as effective as could be achieved within the parameters set by the confidentiality orders made by Theis J.

 

That would make it impossible for the appellants to run their case. For those reasons, the Court and the other parties helped the appellants to liaise with the Bar Pro Bono Unit.

However, the sheer volume involved made that difficult  – doing legal work for nothing is one thing, but reading 64 bundles of evidence  is quite another (that by the way amounts to reading 21 books as long as War and Peace or The Stand. Or reading the entire Harry Potter series SEVEN times. No, I wouldn’t do that for nothing either. They did eventually find someone, but given that they were doing all of this reading for free, in between their paid job it took a little longer)

 

 

 

28th July 2016 hearing

 

  • Unfortunately, the timetable leading to a hearing on 7th July slipped, despite the apparent best efforts of all concerned, and the matter was listed once again before me on 28th July. At that hearing a number of matters were apparent. Firstly, despite the genuine endeavours of the Bar Pro Bono Unit, to whom I am most grateful, it had not been possible to engage a barrister who was willing and able to take on the very substantial task of familiarising themselves with the details of this case. To put the matter in perspective, Theis J had no fewer than 64 lever arch files of documents for the fact finding hearing and this court has already been provided with 27 lever arch files of material simply to support the decision at the pre-permission stage.
  • It was also apparent that the limited time that had been available to the applicants at their respective solicitors’ offices had been insufficient for them to engage with the detail of the judge’s judgment so as to be able to identify potential grounds of appeal.
  • In the event the court was therefore obliged to adjourn the matter further on the basis that the applicants would have additional time to consider the judgment at the various solicitors’ offices and the hope was that they would be supported in that process by an advocate or other support service. On that basis the case was adjourned until September.

 

9th September 2016 hearing

 

  • The final hearing of the permission to appeal applications took place before me on 9th September 2016. By that time the paperwork submitted by the applicants indicated that they had each spent sufficient time with a copy of the judgment to enable them to draw up a list of grounds of appeal. That the applicants and the court were able to achieve that state of affairs is undoubtedly due to a good deal of hard work on their part and, at the same time, a good deal of support and goodwill shown to them by their former solicitors and the advocates who have assisted them. So far as the former solicitors are concerned, I do not anticipate that the facilities and staff that they have made available to the applicants will be remunerated in any way and I am therefore particularly grateful to them for their contribution to this process which, without their help, may well have failed to achieve its target of enabling the applicants to engage with the detailed substance of Theis J’s decision.
  • It is also right to record that throughout this process the court has been very significantly assisted by the thorough, calmly presented and well informed submissions of Miss Sally Stone, counsel for the local authority. Having undertaken the professionally taxing role of presenting the local authority’s case before Theis J, Miss Stone was well placed to assist this court in understanding the various issues raised by the applicants. I am also grateful to the legal services department of the local authority who have provided the court with very well prepared bundles to support this process. That the applications for permission to appeal have taken over six months to determine is, understandably and rightly, a source of great frustration to those who are required to focus upon the welfare of the children. Despite that high level of professional frustration, Miss Stone has presented the local authority’s case in careful and measured terms, as opposed to taking a confrontational stance towards the applicants, in a way which has displayed insightful professionalism of the highest order and which is in the best traditions of the family Bar. Both the local authority and the children’s guardian submit that there are no arguable grounds of appeal.
  • At the conclusion of the 9th September hearing I announced my decision which was to refuse permission to appeal to all three applicants on all grounds. I reserved this judgment in order, firstly, to explain the reasons for that decision and, secondly, to do so in the form of a judgment which will be publicly available so that the details of this process can be made known. In order for the judgment of this court to be public, but at the same time in order to protect the confidentiality of the content of the proceedings before Theis J, it is necessary for this judgment to do no more than refer to the detailed allegations and the circumstances of the family members in the most general of terms. In the event, as I shall explain, because my conclusion is that the potential grounds of appeal do not really engage with the scale of the findings made against these three applicants by Theis J, it is not necessary to descend to fine detail in explaining my reasons for determining the applications as I have done.

 

The appeal itself is not that absorbing – you can read about it in the linked judgment if you wish, but this case really does throw up in a very sharp way just how daunting the task of appealing is for litigants in person and how much fairness in our system is now depending on amounts of goodwill and charity that just wouldn’t be expected in any other line of work.

If you imagine that three bundles is about average (some High Court cases go more than that), then the barrister advising these parents did the equivalent in man hours of working twenty cases for free. Can you concieve of us expecting a heart surgeon to do twenty operations for free? The Pro Bono Bar Unit and the people who help out do remarkable and extraordinary work and it is worth thinking about someone giving up their free time to do the equivalent of twenty normal cases for absolutely no money. Worth thinking about that the next time you read a Daily Mail piece on fat cat legal aid lawyers.

 

 

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Human Rights claims and statutory charge – an answer? Sort of

Posted on November 14, 2016 by suesspiciousminds

In the words of Erik B and Rakim

 

It’s been a long time, I shouldn’ta left you, without a strong rhyme to step to

 

But now, to paraphrase the one-hit wonder gangster rapper from Leicester,  “Return of the Pack – oh my god, Return of the Pack, here I am, Return of the Pack, once again, Return of the Pack, Pump up the world”

 

Which is a more heavy rap-related intro than intended, but basically, now I’m back, to show you…

 

P v a Local Authority 2016

High Court y’all.  Keehan J in da House.

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2016/2779.html

This one is actually a Keehan J shout out to the old skool, if by old skool, you mean (and I do),  the return of a case from March 2016

Child in care wanting parents to have no information or involvement

 

That was the case where the young person did not want his adoptive parents to know anything about the process of gender reassignment, and the LA went to Court to ascertain whether that was in conflict with their duties under the Children Act 1989 to consult with parents when they are looking after a child.

Unfortunately, this happened

 

Background

 

  • In September 2015 P moved to a local authority unit for semi-independent living. Although there were concerns about his mental well being and general welfare, P settled in to this accommodation. He was and is a vulnerable young person with a history of repeated episodes of self harm, taking overdoses and extremely poor mental health.
  • On 11 January 2016 an employee of the local authority disclosed personal information about P, including his forename and transgender status, to third parties who are friends of P’s adoptive parents. P was originally told that the address of the unit where he was living had also been disclosed: this later appears not to have been the case.
  • The impact of this wrongful disclosure on P was immediate and dramatic. He felt unsafe at the unit and left. He first stayed with his girlfriend and then at a number of residential units provided by the local authority. P’s mental health was very severely compromised: he made a number of suicide attempts and there were several episodes of self harm.
  • In more recent months P’s mental health has stabilised. I was very pleased that he was well enough to attend the last court hearing on 26 August 2016.
  • Although the local authority promptly told P of the disclosure of his personal information, I regret that it was slow in (a) giving P a full account of what had happened and (b) giving P a full and unreserved apology. In February the then Director of Children and Family Services wrote a letter of apology to P and offered to meet with him to answer any questions he may have had. P did not take up the offer of a meeting.
  • The member of staff who made the wrongful disclosure was suspended by the local authority and a formal investigation was undertaken pursuant to the council’s disciplinary policy. I do not know the outcome of that process.
  • Regrettably, and notwithstanding that P is a ward of this court, the local authority did not bring this breach of P’s privacy to the attention of this court. The matter was raised with the court by P’s lawyers.
  • The local authority, very sensible and rightly, decided to concede it had, by the inexcusable actions of one of its employees, breached P’s Article 8 rights to respect for his family and private life. They agreed to pay P damages in the sum of £4750. I am satisfied that in light of the very considerable distress suffered by P and the immediate adverse impact on his mental health, this appears to be an appropriate level of damages to be awarded to P.

 

That all seems straightforward. The LA messed up, and they agreed a sum of compensation to pay to P and P was content with that sum, and the Judge felt it was the right amount.

So why is this even a thing?

Well, it is because the Legal Aid Agency (having by the way refused to give P funding to make a claim for damages) wanted to take that £4750 and use it to repay the legal aid that P had had in the original wardship proceedings. This is called the Statutory Charge, and it comes up most often in divorce cases about money. The point there is that if you get legal aid (or ‘free’ legal representation paid by the taxpayer and you win money out of the case, you have to pay the legal aid back out of that money. ) That makes sense with divorce. It doesn’t make a lot of sense here.

It was P’s legal rights that were breached, and the £4,750 is compensation for that breach. Obviously he should get the money.

 

But no, the statutory charge bites on the compensation and P would get nothing.

That’s because of our dear old friend LASPO, the Statute that keeps on giving (if by giving you mean stealing pennies from the eyes of corpses)

 

  • Its current statutory basis is set out in s. 25 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (‘LASPO’) which provides:

 

“Charges on property in connection with civil legal services

(1) Where civil legal services are made available to an individual under this Part, the amounts described in subsection (2) are to constitute a first charge on—

(a) any property recovered or preserved by the individual in proceedings, or in any compromise or settlement of a dispute, in connection with which the services were provided (whether the property is recovered or preserved for the individual or another person), and

(b) any costs payable to the individual by another person in connection with such proceedings or such a dispute.

 

And the killer words her are “in connection with”  – basically the Legal Aid Agency position is that the statutory charge bites (and thus they can take the compensation and take all of the legal aid costs spent on other stuff and P just gets anything left over) if there’s a connection between the cases at all.

There’s one exception in the LASPO Act (none of which apply to compensation from Human Rights claims) and the Lord Chancellor has power to exempt the statutory charge in certain cases

 

 

  • The Lord Chancellor has authority to waive the statutory charge, in whole or in part, where she considers it equitable to do so and two conditions are met.

 

Those conditions are:

(a) the Director was satisfied, in determining that a legally aided party qualified for legal representation, that the proceedings had a significant wider public interest; and

(b) the Director in making the determination took into account that there were other claimants or potential claimants who might benefit from the proceedings:

see regulation 9 of the CLA(SC)R 2013.

 

  • The phrase ‘significant wider public interest’ is defined as being a case where the Director of the LAA is satisfied that the case is an appropriate case to realise real benefits to the public at large, other than those which normally flow from cases of the type in question, and benefits to an identifiable class of individuals, other than the individual to whom civil legal services may be provided or members of that individual’s family: see regulation 6 of the Civil Legal Aid (Merits Criteria) Regulation 2013 (the ‘LA(MC)R 2013’).
  • The LAA asserts that the two conditions set out in regulation 9 of the CLA(SC)R 2013 must be satisfied at the time the application for funding is made and the Director makes the determination that the application qualifies for funding. The purpose of the waiver is to allow legal aid to be granted for a single test case without disadvantaging the applicant should he or she fail to secure damages and/or all of their costs.

 

 

The Lord Chancellor and the Legal Aid Agency were both represented in these proceedings and were clear that Reg 9 had not been sought at the time the application for funding was made (of course it hadn’t, because the breach hadn’t happened at that point)  and so it couldn’t now be applied.

Their very reasonable solution was that P would get his damages, provided that his solicitors, silk and junior counsel agreed to waive all of their fees from the wardship case (i.e having represented P in a very complex and legally difficult case and got everything that he wanted and advanced the law in a way that will help others in similar circumstances, they should not get paid for any of it)

 

 

  • In taking a broad and pragmatic approach leading counsel for the local authority submits that the adverse consequence of the statutory charge, that P will receive not a penny in damages, is unfair and makes no sense. I have a very considerable degree of sympathy with those sentiments.
  • In this context I deprecate the stance taken by the LAA that the issue of P receiving any of the awarded HRA damages would be alleviated if his leading counsel, junior counsel and solicitor simply waived their professional fees for acting in this matter.

 

 

The Judge mooted the idea that if there was a break between the two cases (this is my solution so I’m interested in it)  i.e

  1. The solicitors and counsel deal with the wardship or care proceedings on legal aid

2. Separately and without charging for it, they write to the LA about human rights breach and ask for compensation

3. LA settles the HRA claim (and possibly pays the costs of step 2 into the bargain)

 

Then why is the money recovered as a result of step 2 ‘in connection with’ step 1?  And why should the LAA get their money back from step 1 if step 2 is nothing to do with it, and no legal aid money was spent in getting step 2 achieved?

I think this is a damn good point (immodestly, because I’ve been saying it for ages). The LAA unsurprisingly disagree

 

 

  • The principal supplementary submissions of the LAA may be distilled into the following 10 points:

 

(a) it was common ground between the parties at the hearing on 26 August 2016 that any damages recovered in relation to the breach of P’s Article 8 rights (the ‘HRA claim’) would be damages recovered in the wardship proceedings;(b) the creation of new proceedings avowedly for the purpose of avoiding the statutory charge would not be an appropriate use of the court’s powers. It would be wrong to seek to bring about the disapplication of the statutory charge by changing the previously contemplated approach to the scope of this judgment or disapplying certain rules of civil procedure.

(c) The issues raised by the court about the application of the statutory charge cannot be resolved in a factual vacuum.

(d) Even if P’s damages were awarded in freestanding proceedings which were not funded by the LAA, the statutory charge would still apply to those damages if they were recovered in “proceedings in connection with which the [civil legal] services were provided.” The language of ‘in connection with’ is obviously very wide. I was referred to the case of Cassidy v. Stephenson [2009] EWHC 1562 (QB) where Holman J. held that money recovered from the settlement of professional negligence proceedings brought as a result of a failed clinical negligence (which was funded) was not property recovered in a dispute “in connection with which” the legal services for the clinical negligence claims were provided.

(e) The propositions set out in paragraphs 7 to 10 of the email of 20 October 2016 are correct, save that the LAA is not privy to the full background to this case (eg the local authority’s response to P’s letter before action).

(f) The HRA claim cannot be said to be ‘wholly unconnected’ to the subject matter of the wardship proceedings. The LAA asserts that:

“As the LAA understands the position, the Court considered P’s circumstances and the extent to which information about him and his whereabouts should be disclosed in the inherent jurisdiction proceedings. The HRA Claim arose, as the LAA understands it, as a result of conduct by the LCC that was not consistent with the way in which that issue was resolved, with the Court’s assistance, in these proceedings. It was therefore reliant on matters determined in RA’s favour in the wardship proceedings, for which funding for civil legal services was provided.

…

Civil legal services were provided for the wardship proceedings, in which RA was made a ward of the Court, and restrictions were imposed on disclosure of information in relation to RA. It was the fact that LCC acted contrary to the resolved position that has given rise to the HRA Claim. The LAA funded the wardship proceedings, including for a declaration that there had been a breach of the injunction imposed by the Court. “

(g) It would be artificial to say than any recovery of damages was not made in the wardship proceedings.

(h) Even if the award of damages was made or approved outwith the wardship proceedings, the damages were still recovered in proceedings in connection with which “legal services were provided” (i.e. the wardship proceedings). The LAA relies on the assertion by P’s counsel that the authorities state that HRA claims should be brought within wardship proceedings viz. Re L(Care Proceedings: Human Rights Claims) [2003] 2 FLR 160.

(i) The answer to the question posed in paragraph 15 of the email of 20 October 2016 is “yes” there are reasons why the court should not permit the issue of a freestanding HRA claim. Such a device would be inappropriate and would not result in the disapplication of the statutory charge because, as asserted above, the damages would be recovered in (unfunded) proceedings which were “in connection with” the (funded) wardship proceedings.

 

 

The Judge decided otherwise and ruled that in this case steps 1 and 2 were not ‘connected with’ each other and the statutory charge did not arise on the compensation payable to P. Hooray!

 

 

 

  • It is appropriate for me to deal with each of those points in turn. First, the court is neither bound nor fettered in its determination of the legal issues or the factual matrix of a case by the submission of counsel. In any event counsel were afforded the opportunity to agree or disagree with the alternative analysis proposed by the court and to make submissions. P and the local authority have decided to agree with my propositions and questions. The LAA have had a full opportunity to respond and I can discern no procedural or substantive unfairness in the course I have adopted.
  • Second, to characterise the alternative analysis the court has suggested is ‘avowedly for the purpose of avoiding the statutory charge’ is quite wrong. Rather my objective is to secure, if at all possible, by any legitimate and lawful route P’s receipt of the damages he maybe awarded for the breach of his Article 8 Rights by an organ of the state.
  • Third the factual matrix of this case should be well known to all parties including the LAA. The same is comprehensively set out in the parties’ written submissions and in a detailed chronology prepared on behalf of P. I do not accept the court is considering the legal issues in this case in a factual vacuum.
  • Fourth, with reference to paragraph 64(d) above, I accept the phrase “in connection with which the [civil legal] services were provided” can be given a very wide interpretation. I was not referred to any authority to support a submission that I must give it a very wide interpretation.
  • Fifth, with reference to paragraph 64(e) above, I do not understand the submission that the “LAA is not privy to the full background to this case.” For the purposes of this judgment I have not taken account of nor have I been furnished with material not available to all counsel, save perhaps for one matter which I refer to in the next paragraph.
  • Sixth, with reference to paragraphs 64(f) and (g) above, the LAA appears to have proceeded and proceeds on the basis of a fundamental misunderstanding of the order I made in August 2015: see paragraph 46 above. I did not make an injunction or other order prohibiting the local authority from disclosing personal or private details about P to other persons, save against the local authority disclosing information to P’s adoptive parents: see paragraph 8 above. I made a declaratory order that the local authority was relieved of its statutory duty to give information about P to or to consult with P’s adoptive parents about P or his welfare. The LAA has proceeded and proceeds on the following assumptions:

 

(a) that I made an injunctive order against the local authority;(b) that the employee of the local authority breached the terms of that injunction;

(c) and that P’s claim against the local authority was based on a breach of that injunction.

None of the foregoing assumptions are factually correct. The LAA’s mistake does explain the funding decision of 8 February 2016, set out at paragraph 38 above, to permit P to bring a claim for a declaration for breach of an injunction.

 

  • P’s claim is and was always based upon his Art. 8 Convention right to respect for his private and family life. The claim had nothing to do with the declaratory relief granted to P in the wardship proceedings. This court was not notified of that alleged breach (now admitted) by an employee of the local authority which it should have been because P is a ward of this court and because of the adverse consequences of the wrongful disclosure on P. Furthermore the wrongful disclosure, insofar as it is relevant, was made to third parties and not to P’s adoptive parents. The local authority asserts that the third parties did not, in fact, pass on the disclosed information to P’s adoptive parents.
  • Seventh, with reference to paragraphs 64(h) and (i) above, in light of the correct factual matrix set out above I am not satisfied that the (unfunded) HRA claim in which damages are sought could be said to be “recovered in proceedings in connection with which legal services were provided” (i.e. the funded wardship proceedings). I go further, I am wholly satisfied that the damages resulting from the HRA claim are not “recovered in proceedings in connection with which legal services were provided”. There is no legal or factual connection between the wardship proceedings and P’s HRA claim.
  • The mere fact that P’s counsel in submission referred to the case of Re L(Care Proceedings: Human Rights Claims) [2003] 2 FLR 160 which advises that HRA claims may or should be made in existing proceedings, does not require this court to conclude that P must or may only make a HRA claim in ongoing wardship proceedings. No claim form was issued. The HRA claim and the quantum of damages were settled before a claim was issued. As referred to in paragraphs 58 and 59 above, rr. 21.10 and 8 of the CPR set out the appropriate procedure when a settlement is reached concerning a child or young person prior to the issue of proceedings.
  • I can discern no legal impediment or other reason why I should not permit P by his solicitor to issue a claim form as required by r. 8.2 of the CPR and upon that basis, in due course, proceed to approve the agreed award of damages to P in respect of his HRA claim in those proceedings. The approval of damages can be submitted by email and be dealt on the papers without the need for a hearing. I am confident that the local authority would agree to pay the costs of that process incurred by P’s legal team.

 

Conclusions

 

  • I am bound to find that the Lord Chancellor, by the director of the LAA, has no discretion or power to waive the statutory charge, if applicable, in this case. The preconditions set out in regulation 9 of the CLA(SC)R 2013 must be satisfied at the time the determination of funding is made and a decision to waive the statutory charge must be made at the same time. That did not happen in this case and thus the preconditions are not satisfied.
  • I do not understand why the CLA(SC)R 2013 regulations placed that limitation on the time when a decision whether to waive the statutory charge must be made. I am not aware of any public interest or policy reasons for the same. It is regrettable that the discretion to waive the statutory charge is so fettered.
  • The manner in which the LAA has made determinations on public funding in these proceedings is extremely unfortunate. In some aspects the decisions are plainly wrong and/or unreasonable and in others the reasoning of the LAA is difficult to understand, if not incomprehensible.
  • In my view it would be extremely regrettable if P were to be denied the benefit of the damages awarded to him as a result of the considerable emotional distress and harm to his mental well being he has suffered as a result of the wrongful conduct of an organ of the state.
  • In light of the fact, however, that the LAA refused to fund a HRA claim for damages it appears me that the damages to be awarded to P under the Part 8 procedure were recovered in a claim that did not have the benefit of a public funding certificate. Further I am wholly satisfied that any damages awarded to P in Part 8 proceedings were not recovered “in proceedings in connection with which [civil legal] services were provided.” Accordingly, however erroneous or muddled the LAA’s decision making was on this issue, in my view, for the reasons I have given above the statutory charge is not and cannot be applicable to P’s award of damages.

 

 

Is this the end of it? Not really. Whilst the Judge here paints a route-map for others to follow, there are two major differences from other HRA cases notably the s20 damages cases.

 

  1. The HRA breach happened AFTER the Court hearing and not really in connection with the Court hearing at all. P’s rights would have been breached by what the rogue member of staff did, whether or not there had been a Court hearing. (The Court hearing made it sharper and more vivid and allowed P to easily tap into legal advice from his legal team whom he already knew, but the breach was a breach regardless. It was  a breach of his article 8 rights, NOT as the LAA mistakenly thought a breach of a Court injunction)
  2. The LAA had been asked to fund a damages claim and had refused. That is a material factor in the Judge being able to rule that there was no connection between the two cases.

 

(On the plus side for children and parents, this case probably makes it more likely that the LAA will STOP refusing to fund such damages cases, since if they do, they leave the door open to not being able to recover their original costs out of any winnings, but that in turn means that they will argue that this case doesn’t have broader application)

 

I suspect this is an issue that only the Court of Appeal or Parliament can resolve. It simply can’t be right that where a child or parent has their human rights breached by the State and compensation is paid that they will not get a penny of it. Equally it can’t be right that where the HRA claim is accepted and settled swiftly, that the LA get hit with costs of care proceedings which would be massively more than the legal costs of dealing with the HRA claim itself (and that is a collision course with Supreme Court decisions in Re S and Re T about where costs orders can be made in care proceedings)

Not for the first or last time, the answer is that LASPO is badly drafted and poorly constructed and unfair to real people, and it needs to be reworked.

 

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Like Redbridge under troubled water (a Local Authority takes a kicking case)

Posted on October 25, 2016 by suesspiciousminds

 

I know that my readership tends to like a case where a Local Authority gets a good going over from the Judge – some of my readers don’t like social workers (and some with good cause), some are lawyers who represent parents and get exasperated by LA failings (some with good cause) and some are Local Authority lawyers and social workers who need to know what pitfalls might be awaiting them in Court – and some people just frankly enjoy a bit of “thank goodness that wasn’t me”.

If you are one of my readers who works for the London Borough of Redbridge, good morning, and thanks for your support, but you might want to skip this particular blog. It will spoil your coffee and possibly your day.

 

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2016/2627.html

 

London Borough of Redbridge v A B and E (Failure to comply with directions) 2016

 

This was a High Court case heard by MacDonald J.  (By way of context, the LA could have had many far worse High Court Judges for this case, there are some where I would have feared for their survival)

 

Also by way of context, this was going to be the re-hearing of a final hearing, because at the first hearing the LA had filed their placement order late/not at all, and the Recorder had messed it up. At the Court of Appeal hearing, Redbridge had been sternly admonished for their failure to comply with directions or to seek court leave where they were going out of time. So there had already been cock-ups in this case which the LA had been told off for by the Court of Appeal – specifically about late filing of evidence and very very specifically about filing an application for a Placement Order very late.

 

With that context in mind, at an early directions hearing in the re-hearing, MacDonald J made this direction

 

  1. The matter having been remitted to the Family Division, on 28 July 2016 I made a series of directions designed to case manage this matter to a further and third final hearing on 17 October 2016, including:
  1. i) Directions for the filing of (i) the minutes of the LAC Reviews held since March 2016 by 11 August 2016 and (ii) a witness statement from any Police officer who attended the alleged incident on 27 December 2015 by 4pm on 22 August 2016;
  2. ii) A direction that the local authority file and serve (i) a final care plan, (ii) a final witness statement, (iii) a Scott Schedule of facts the court is invited to find and (iv) Schedule of Issues by 4pm on 12 September 2016;

iii) A direction that the local authority issues any placement application by 4pm on 12 September 2016 together with directions consequent thereon;

  1. iv) A direction that the mother file and serve her final evidence and response to the Scott Schedule by 4pm on 26 September 2016;
  2. v) A direction that the Children’s Guardian file and serve her final analysis and recommendations by 4pm on 10 October 2016;
  3. vi) A direction listing the matter for a further Case Management Hearing on 1 September 2016.
  1. On the face of my order of 28 July 2016 I required a recital to be included to the effect that, in light of the history of this matter, it was vital that the local authority adhered to the letter of the regulations and procedural rules that govern its conduct as between the date of that order and the final hearing. A further recital recorded that “All parties are reminded that should any issue arise that may affect the timetabling of this case then they are under a duty to inform the court of the issue and, if necessary, make an application to bring the matter back to court.”
  1. Pursuant to my order of 28 July 2016, the matter again came before me on 1 September 2016 for a further Case Management Hearing. On that date it was apparent that the local authority had failed to comply with parts of the order of 28 July 2016. In particular, the local authority had failed to comply with a number of the case management directions, including a failure to file and serve the minutes of any LAC Reviews that had occurred since March 2016 and a witness statement from any Police officer who attended the alleged incident on 27 December 2015. A further feature of the local authority’s conduct brought to the Court’s attention on 1 September 2016 was the alleged persistent failure by the local authority solicitor with conduct of the case to reply to correspondence from the solicitors instructed by the mother.

 

Despite this litany of non-compliance, no application had been made by the local authority to amend the directions in respect of the above matters prior to the expiry of the time for complying with those directions. Beyond the failures of the local authority articulated in the foregoing paragraph, the trial bundle is in what can only be described as a state of disarray, with key documents missing.

 

There was a directions hearing where the Judge describes himself as ‘expressing himself in excoriating terms’ about the failings, the case came BACK to Court for an explanation and the LA counsel had received no instructions in advance of that hearing….

 

Even today, and after I had expressed myself in what, I have no doubt, can fairly be described as excoriating terms at the compliance hearing last Wednesday, Mr Pavlou attended court this morning without having been able to secure instructions from the local authority as to when the matter would be ready for an adjourned final hearing. In particular, he had been unable even to achieve instructions as to the timetable for a further decision by the ADM. This was notwithstanding the fact that on 1 September 2016 I had directed the local authority to file and serve by 4pm on 14 October 2016 a further decision of the ADM to be taken in light of additional evidence to be filed ahead of the final hearing and not available when the initial decision was made by the ADM

 

Mr Pavlou deserves a very good bottle of Scotch from this Local Authority, it must have been a brief that kept him up at night.

 

In relation to the LA solicitor’s actions, read this and wince.  (I have anonymised the solicitor’s name, the Judge did not)

 

Finally, with respect to the allegation that the local authority solicitor with conduct of this matter has failed to reply to correspondence from the solicitors representing the mother, at the compliance hearing last Wednesday Ms E instructed Mr Pavlou (in a manner audible to the court) that she had responded to each and every email sent and Mr Pavlou advised the court accordingly. However, the signed statement that I have this morning received from Ms E concedes that she has replied to only a little more than 50% of the correspondence sent to the local authority by the mother’s solicitor.

 

(Being fair to Ms E, both of those things are actually possible – if someone sends 2 chasing emails to you saying the same thing and you answer it, you have answered all the correspondence but you have also only responded to half of the individual emails. But still, ouch)

 

Compounding all of this, when the ADM decision WAS produced, it was apparent that the ADM had taken it upon themselves to make decisions about the truth of allegations when those allegations had not been the subject of findings or even sought as findings…

 

Further, and within this context, with respect to the proposed application for a placement order, Ms Maclachlan had little difficulty at the compliance hearing demonstrating that the initial decision of the Agency Decision Maker was flawed to the extent that any application issued on the basis of the ADM decision would readily be open to attack and the decision of the ADM will have to be re-taken. In short, the ADM had taken it upon herself to make findings about the cause and provenance of the aforementioned injuries notwithstanding that the same have not been the subject of forensic investigation or findings within these proceedings. The late service of the ADM’s decision had prevented this fundamental issue being identified earlier and at a time it was still capable of remedy without impacting on the final hearing.

 

{This aspect is a little tricky – as the Court of Appeal have almost banned fact finding hearings, there are many cases where the ADM is charged with making a decision about whether adoption is the plan for the child when there is no Court finding yet about threshold or allegations. The ADM has to take a view on whether they personally are satisfied about threshold, because obviously if they DON’T think threshold is crossed,  how could they possibly decide that adoption is the plan? They must, however, avoid in their analysis and decision making specific comments as to threshold. The best way to think of it, in my mind, is that the ADM is deciding on what the plan for the child should be IF the Court is satisfied that the child has suffered significant harm. Because if the Court don’t find threshold, adoption won’t be the plan anyway. My reading is that in this case, the ADM and the social worker had gone further than just making that assumption that threshold was capable of being proven and in to dealing with specific allegations which were in dispute}

 

It won’t surprise anyone to learn that a costs order hearing is pending, with Redbridge having to show cause why they should NOT pay the costs.

 

Additionally, however,

 

 

  1. Ms Tara Vindis on behalf of the E submitted that this case is one that requires to now be put into ‘special measures‘. That is an apt analogy. Within this context, it is my intention that the local authority will provide a written report to me each Friday morning at 10.00am by way of email to my Clerk confirming the continued compliance with the timetable the court intends to impose. In the event of default on the part of the local authority, the matter will be brought back into the list for a compliance hearing. It is my expectation that the local authority will comply with its heavy duty to obey the directions of the court.

 

 

The Court also made it clear that the parties are forbidden to agree their own timetable and simply notify the Court of it, they actively need permission of the Court to change the timetable. (this approach works if the Court in question are very responsive to communications, not always the case everywhere in the country.  This is not me having a go at Court staff, who would have found it next to impossible to cope with a 40% increase in demand over the last two years even at full staffing, and we know that as a result of austerity, Court staffing levels were cut to the bone way before this surge in demand.  However, you can’t get an application in to adjust the timetable unless you’ve got very speedy communication at every step of the chain. If LA’s actually did what the President suggested and applied for extensions when they thought they were going to be half an hour late in filing a document, they would BREAK THE COURT system. And as LA’s need the Court system NOT TO BE BROKEN – you know, so that the Court can do their job of listing emergency applications, most of them have not followed the ‘apply if half an hour late’ principle)

 

  1. The courts have repeatedly reminded local authorities and those representing them of the following cardinal principles applicable to complying with case management directions made by the court in public law cases:
  2. i) Case management orders are to be obeyed, to be complied with on time and to the letter and any party finding themselves unable to comply must apply for an extension of time before the time for compliance has expired (see Re W (Children) [2015] 1 FLR 1092).
  3. ii) Agreements between the parties to amend the timetable set by the Family Court are forbidden by FPR 2010, r 4.5(3). The parties are categorically not permitted to amend the timetable fixed by the court without the court’s prior approval and every party is under a duty to inform the court of non-compliance with the timetable set (see Re W (Children) [2015] 1 FLR 1092). Within this context, writing to the court to inform the court that the timetable has been altered does not amount to seeking the court’s permission. A specific request for prior approval must be made.

iii) The burden of other work is not an excuse for non-compliance with the directions of the court. Whatever the difficulties presented by resource issues, the court will not tolerate a failure to comply timeously with orders (see Bexley LBC v, W and D [2014] EWHC 2187).

  1. iv) Casual non-compliance is not an option precisely because further harm will likely be caused to the child (see Re H (A Child)(Analysis of Realistic Options and SGOs) [2015] EWCA Civ 406).
  2. v) Failure by a local authority to comply with court orders causing unnecessary and harmful delay may result in a breach of Arts 6 and 8 and in an award of damages being made against a local authority (see Northamptonshire County Council v AS, KS and DS [2015] EWHC 199(Fam)).

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Yet another fertility clinic paperwork error case

Posted on October 16, 2016 by suesspiciousminds

 

Readers may be aware of the ongoing litigation caused because fertility clinics had not properly ensured that their paperwork reflected the wishes and intentions of the adults involved that they would both wish to be legal parents to any child the clinic helped them conceive, very often this being just a failure to ensure that ticks were placed in each box or that the forms complied with what was required of them. This has led to a lot of human misery, where people who believed that they were a legal parent of a child were told, often years later, that they were not, and had to go through a court process to put that right. The last one I wrote about, the parents had had to adopt their own biological child and spoke in very moving terms about how awful that was.

This one is even worse, I think.

Here is how the President begins

Jefferies v BMI Healthcare Ltd (Human Fertilisation And Embryology) [2016] EWHC 2493 (Fam) (12 October 2016)

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2016/2493.html

 

 

 

  • When he was 19 years old, Clive Jefferies, then in the Royal Army Medical Corps, served his country in the Falklands War. On 8 June 1982 he was with the Welsh Guards on RFA Sir Galahad when it was bombed and destroyed by the Argentinian Air Force at Bluff Cove. On that day the fates smiled at him. Minutes before the attack he had been in a part of the ship where the first bomb exploded, killing many men. In the aftermath of the bombing he saved the life of a comrade who was in difficulties in the water. At his funeral, 32 years later, his commanding officer described his conduct on that fateful day as magnificent.
  • Returning to civvy street in 1987, Clive served the community as a nurse and midwife. He and his wife, the claimant Samantha Jefferies, met in 1999, moved in together in 2002 and married in 2007. Their ambition to have a family was assisted by the Sussex Downs Fertility Centre, a clinic operated by the First Interested Party, BMI Healthcare Limited, and regulated by the Second Interested Party, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).
  • Neither of the first two cycles of IVF treatment was successful. On 1 April 2014 they attended the clinic to plan a third cycle of treatment, using three embryos, created from Samantha’s eggs and Clive’s sperm, which had been frozen on 11 August 2013. It was not to be. Fate struck. On 19 April 2014, suddenly and unexpectedly, Clive collapsed and died of a brain haemorrhage, while at home with Samantha. He was only 51 years old. He had previously been fit and healthy. It came as an appalling and terrible shock to Samantha. She was devastated.

 

With that history, the very last thing anyone would want is for there to be a row about how long the frozen embryos, the only chance for Samantha to have the baby fathered by Clive that they had both wanted, could be stored for and whether as a result of a flaw in paperwork for there to be a suggestion that they should be destroyed.

But that is what happened.

To their credit (and no doubt just reading those three paragraphs above would have made this an easy decision)  the clinic indicated that it did not want to take any active role in the proceedings and did not try to stand in the way of Samantha’s application for a declaration that despite flaws in the paperwork the embryos could continue to be stored, which she duly got.

These cases are causing misery, suffering, anxiety and a great deal of expense and Court time. It would be nice if the Government produced some legislation which provided for an amnesty and blanket declarations that where the fault lies with the paperwork and not the adults commissioning the fertility clinic, the wishes of those adults should prevail and avoid the need for Courts. It’s not an easy bit of legislation to draft, but I hope someone takes up that challenge on behalf of all of these parents who are going through turbulent and miserable times (and sometimes as here when life has already dealt that person such a challenging hand).

 

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Nepal-ing behaviour (I’m sorry, I’ll just get my coat)

Posted on October 16, 2016 by suesspiciousminds

I wrote about part 1 of this curious case where a couple living in Dubai adopted a child in Nepal, then they separated and the Court was having to deal with (a) was this a lawful adoption and if not could it be made lawful and (b) where should the child live

 

Application to dismiss a Guardian for bias

And as you can see from the title, part 1 was chiefly about the mother’s application that the Guardian was biased (which did not succeed)

 

Part 2 doesn’t disappoint either.  It was heard by Mr Justice MacDonald, who does get interesting cases and does them well.

Re QS v RS & Anor 2016

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2016/2470.html

 

T, the girl adopted from Nepal is now 12 years old. She has been living with one or both of this couple since 2008 and within the 8 years of her time with them, SEVEN have been in profoundly acrimonious court proceedings. It is hard not to think that she might have been better off remaining in Nepal.

 

She was adopted in 2008 by the couple, who were at that time British citizens living in Britain. (Nepal at the time of the adoption was not one of those countries where the UK has an arrangement that makes adoptions from that country lawful if a process is correctly followed. It is now, however. )   The parents then lived for a time in Dubai and then they separated, with the adoptive mother moving back to the UK.

 

As MacDonald J explains, the history of litigation about this child has been horrendous and protracted

 

 

  • The background to this matter is in part contentious. Regrettably, the parents have now been engaged in one form of litigation or another since 2009. Within that context, I made clear to both parties at the outset of these proceedings that in determining the issues before the court I would not be assisted by a detailed forensic exploration of each and every allegation and counter-allegation levelled by the parents over the course of the past 8 years. It is within this context that I begin by examining the background that leads up to the present situation.

 

 

Curiously, although T is 12 years old, she was born (will be born?) in 2062.

 

Yes, you read that date right. 2062.

 

That’s because the Nepalese calendar works differently to ours

It has been possible to further refine the details of T’s early life from documentation that has become available since I gave my first judgment in this matter on 15 October 2015. By the Nepalese Bikram Samvat calendar, on 20 August 2062 T was found abandoned in a temple in Chitwan in the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal (although I note that other documentation seen by the expert appears to suggest that T was discovered near a bridge in Kathmandu).

 

It does strike me as somewhat peculiar that in our financially challenged times  that the High Court is spending time and legal aid in litigating about a girl born in Nepal, who lives in Dubai and won’t be born for another 46 years….

 

Under the law of Nepal the adoption of T was lawful in Nepal. Following the adoption, the parents took her from Nepal to Dubai, and in Dubai T was granted British Citizenship. If you are thinking to yourself, hang on, what power has anyone in Dubai got to grant British citizenship on a girl from Nepal, you are not alone

 

  • Following their adoption of T the parents moved with her to live in Dubai. Following her arrival in Dubai T was granted British Citizenship. I have had sight of a Certificate of Registration dated the 16 September 2008, registering T as a British citizen. The precise circumstances in which T was granted British Citizenship remain, despite considerable efforts by the parties, unclear. However, the ‘Adoption Guarantee Letter’ dated 5 December 2006 to which I have already referred states the intention to grant British citizenship for T upon her adoption by the parents by way of the discretion afforded to the Home Secretary by s 3(1) of the British Nationality Act 1981. That letter was signed by the British Consul in Kathmandu. Within this context, and in accordance with the intent of the ‘Adoption Guarantee Letter’ T’s Certificate of Registration makes clear that she was registered as a British Citizen by the Home Secretary pursuant to the power conferred by s 3(1) of the 1981 Act on 16 September 2008.

 

 

 

After the parents split up and mother issued her petition for divorce in Guildford County Court, she moved to Sharjah with T. If you were not previously aware that Sharjah was all that close to Guildford, it was news to me also.

There then followed all sorts of peculiarities, culminating with the mother requiring a Royal Pardon AND a Court decision in Dubai that neither the mother nor the father were the legal parent of T, but custody (I use the term that’s in the judgment) was awarded to the father. The mother was then deported and came to England.  The mother in Dubai has no legal rights regarding T and no right to see her.  Also, given the difficulties that she had with the Royal Pardon, entering Dubai places her at risk of a complaint being made and her being detained and prevented from leaving.

 

The Judge remarks upon the mother’s Facebook campaign

 

 

  • One further matter of background requires mention. Following her deportation, the mother commenced a campaign on Facebook, with a Facebook page entitled “Rescue T“. Whilst the mother contends that this site evolved, ultimately, into a blog through which she seeks to assist people in a similar situation to her own, it is plain on the mother’s own evidence that over a significant period of time she placed into the public domain information that concerned matters intensely private to T. The mother also used the medium to address T publically. The father asserts, in evidence that was not challenged, that at Christmas 2014 the mother posted publically the following message to T “he even abandons you for a significant part of the Christmas holiday to go abroad leaving you alone with a maid for days on end. How utterly, incredibly selfish! Again, you best interests are being ignored. I would NEVER, NEVER do this to you!” The father had been compelled to travel abroad to see a dying relative. At the instigation of the mother the case also featured heavily in the press. The father contends he has been vilified on social media and that the mother has given a false account of him to the newspapers.
  • Within the context of the mother’s online activity, the father contends that his efforts to facilitate contact between the mother and T from June 2013 onwards, including the offer of shared holidays in a neutral country provided proper arrangements for T’s passport were put in place and offers to pay for the mother to visit T at Christmas 2013, were met with no response. The father states that he encouraged T to send emails to her mother on special occasions and there are examples of those messages in the bundle.
  • The mother concedes that she did not reply to emails from T wishing her mother a happy birthday in November 2014 and a happy Valentine’s day in February 2015. The mother asserted during her evidence that she could not be sure that the emails were from T although, significantly in my judgment, she later said that she did not reply because this form of communication did not “fit” with her (the mother’s) requests for contact. The mother further conceded that she did not respond to a request from the father that she provide him with T’s vaccination records, following which refusal T had to be re-vaccinated and suffered a dangerous reaction to one of the additional inoculations, leading to her admission to hospital.

 

 

 

 

The Judge carefully explains the process by which an adoption which is not currently lawful in English law can be recognised and legitimised by English law. Care has to be taken, because this child is ordinarily resident in Dubai where court proceedings have made a determination that the adoption is not lawful and that neither mother or father have any legal rights over T and are not her parents. So the Judge has to tread softly.

 

The statutory power is fairly simple

 

 

  • if the court is satisfied that it is appropriate to recognise the foreign adoption at common law the court may, if the requisite conditions are met, make a declaration pursuant to the Family Law Act 1986 s 57, which section provides as follows:

 

57 Declarations as to adoptions effected overseas.

E+W

(1) Any person whose status as an adopted child of any person depends on whether he has been adopted by that person by either—

(a) a Convention adoption, or an overseas adoption within the meaning of the Adoption and Children Act 2002, or

(b) an adoption recognised by the law of England and Wales and effected under the law of any country outside the British Islands,

may apply to the High Court or a county court for one (or for one or, in the alternative, the other) of the declarations mentioned in subsection (2) below.

(2) The said declarations are—

(a) a declaration that the applicant is for the purposes of section 39 of the Adoption Act 1976 or section 67 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 the adopted child of that person;

(b) a declaration that the applicant is not for the purposes of that section the adopted child of that person.

(3) A court shall have jurisdiction to entertain an application under subsection (1) above if, and only if, the applicant—

(a) is domiciled in England and Wales on the date of the application, or

(b) has been habitually resident in England and Wales throughout the period of one year ending with that date.

 

 

A trusty barometer of whether things in law are going to get complicated is where the Judge has to begin their overview of the law with a Lord Denning case, particularly one itself that refers back to a case decided before electricity was something other than an amusing new phenomenon that made dead frogs’ legs twitch and so it proves to be here

 

 

  • The Adoption and Children Act 2002 s 66(1)(e) defines “adoption” as including “an adoption recognised by the law of England and Wales, and effected under the law of any other country”. It has long been established that the recognition of a foreign adoption may be achieved by recourse to the common law. In Re Valentine’s Settlement at 841, a case concerning the recognition of an adoption effected under the law of South Africa, Lord Denning endorsed the observation of James LJ in Re Goodman’s Trusts (1881) 17 Ch.D 266 at 297:

 

“I start with the proposition stated by James LJ in In re Goodman’s Trusts: ‘The family relation is at the foundation of all society, and it would appear almost an axiom that the family relation, once duly constituted by the law of any civilised country, should be respected and acknowledged by every other member of the great community of nations’. That was a legitimation case, but the like principle applies to adoption. But when is the status of adoption duly constituted? Clearly it is so when it is constituted in another country in similar circumstances as we claim for ourselves. Our courts should recognise a jurisdiction which mutatis mutandis they claim for themselves: see Travers v. Holley [1953] P. 246, 257; [1953] 3 W.L.R. 507; [1953] 2 All E.R. 794 , C.A. We claim jurisdiction to make an adoption order when the adopting parents are domiciled in this country and the child is resident here. So also, out of the comity of country when the adopting parents are domiciled there and the child is resident there.”

Lord Denning concluded further as follows in relation to the circumstances in which a foreign adoption would be recognised at common law:

“Apart from international comity, we reach the same result on principle. When a court of any country makes an adoption order for an infant child, it does two things: (1) it destroys the legal relationship theretofore existing between the child and its natural parents, be it legitimate or illegitimate; (2) it creates the legal relationship of parent and child between the child and its adopting parents, making it their legitimate child. It creates a new status in both, namely, the status of parent and child. Now it has long been settled that questions affecting status are determined by the law of the domicile. This new status of parent and child, in order to be recognised everywhere, must be validly created by the law of the domicile of the adopting parent. You do not look to the domicile of the child: for that has no separate domicile of its own. It takes its parents’ domicile. You look to the parents’ domicile only. If you find that a legitimate relationship of parent and child has been validly created by the law of the parents’ domicile at the time the relationship is created, then the status so created should be universally recognised throughout the civilised world, provided always that there is nothing contrary to public policy in so recognising it. That general principle finds expression in the judgment of Scott L.J. in In re Luck’s Settlement Trusts, Walker v. Luck [1940] Ch. 864, 907-908; sub nom. In re Luck, Walker v. Luck, 56 T.L.R. 915; [1940] 3 All E.R. 307 C.A. I think it is correct, notwithstanding that the majority in that case created a dubious exception to it. But it is an essential feature of this principle that the parents should be domiciled in the country at the time: for no provision of the law of a foreign country will be regarded in the English courts as effective to create the status of a parent in a person not domiciled in that country at the time: see In re Grove, Vaucher v. Treasury Solicitor (1888) 40 Ch.D. 216; 4 T.L.R. 762 , C.A. (legitimation by subsequent marriage); In re Wilson, decd., Grace v. Lucas [1954] Ch. 733; [1954] 2 W.L.R. 1097; [1954] 1 All E.R. 997 (adoption). I ought to say, however, that in order for adoption to be recognised everywhere, it seems to me that, in addition to the adopting parents being domiciled in the country where the order is made, the child should be ordinarily resident there: for it is the courts of ordinary residence which have the pre-eminent jurisdiction over the child: see In re P. (G. E.) (An Infant) [1965] Ch. 568, 585; [1965] 2 W.L.R. 1, 11; [1964] 3 All E.R. 977, C.A. The child is under their protection and it would seem only right that those courts should be the courts to decide whether the child should be adopted or not.”

 

  • Within the context of the present case, I also pause to note the dissenting judgment of Salmon LJ in Re Valentine’s Settlement at 852:

 

“It has been suggested that according to the theory of our law no foreign adoption should be recognised unless, at the time it was made, both adopted child and adoptive parent were domiciled within the jurisdiction of the foreign country and that this appeal should be decided accordingly. Our law, however, develops in accordance with the changing needs of man. These have always been ascertained by experience rather than by the rigid application of abstract theory. Experience has shown that there are sound sociological reasons for recognising an adoption in circumstances such as these. Adoption – providing that there are proper safeguards – is greatly for the benefit of the adopted child and of the adoptive parents, and also, I think, of civilised society, since this is founded on the family relationship. It seems to me that we should be slow to refuse recognition to an adoption order made by a foreign court which applies the same safeguards as we do and which undoubtedly had jurisdiction over the adopted child and its natural parents. The laws of adoption in South Africa are very nearly the same as our own. The principles underlying them are the same. The whole emphasis is upon the welfare of the child and elaborate precautions are laid down for assuring that the adoption order shall not be made unless it is for the benefit of the child; the consent of the natural parents is required. It is difficult to see why in these circumstances, unless compelled to do so, our courts should refuse to recognise these adoption orders made lawfully in South Africa which conferred nothing but benefits on all the parties concerned.”

and at 854:

“Mr. Templeman, in the course of an exceptionally able argument, emphasised what he described as the danger and absurdity of a childless man and wife being able to go abroad for a short holiday and return the mother and father of three children. It may or may not be absurd but the danger would exist only if the considerations for adoption in the foreign country concerned were quite alien to our own and our courts were obliged to recognise the adoption whatever the circumstances. This is not so, for it is always open to our courts on grounds of public policy to refuse to recognise a foreign adoption even when the domicile of the adoptive father is impeccable.”

 

  • I further note that it is clear that Dankwerts LJ came to his conclusion that he must concur with the judgment of Lord Denning with some reluctance (Re Valentine’s Settlement at 846) and that Lord Denning himself recognised that the observations of Salmon LJ cast doubt on his conclusion that the courts of this country will only recognise an adoption in another country if the adopting parents are domiciled there, stating at 843 that:

 

“I may, however, be wrong about this: because I recognise the force of the opinion which Salmon L.J. will express, namely, that the courts of this country should recognise an adoption in another country if it is effected by an order of the courts of that country, provided always that their courts apply the same safeguards as we do.”

 

 

  • Nonetheless, the common law rule established by Re Valentine’s Settlement is clear and has been applied consistently since 1965. Within this context, pursuant to the Adoption and Children Act 2002 s 49(2) domicile (or, in the alternative, habitual residence) is still a part of “the circumstances we claim for ourselves” when constituting a valid domestic adoption, a valid application for an adoption order under the Act requiring at least one of the couple (in the case of an application by a couple) or the applicant (in the case of an application by one person) be domiciled or habitually resident in a part of the British Islands.

 

 

 

In very broad terms, if another country has similar adoption provisions to ourselves, and we would be prepared to make an adoption order of say Nepalese parents who are domiciled here and who adopt a child, we should do the same if British parents adopt a child in Nepal. The difficulty here, however, is that when the British couple adopted T, they were NOT domiciled in Nepal – they were there purely to adopt a child and had no intentions whatsoever of residing or settling there.  That is not a scenario in which a Nepalese couple could adopt in Britain  (it is perfectly legal in Nepalese law, but their law does not have the domicile element – that the person has to be living in the country where they adopt)

 

 

  • Within the foregoing context, the criteria for determining whether the court should recognise an adoption made in any country outside Great Britain and valid by the law of that country at common law were articulated by Hedley J in Re T and M (Adoption) [2011] 1 FLR 1487 and Re R (Recognition of Indian Adoption) [2013] 1 FLR 1487 as follows:

 

i) Were the status conditions required by English domestic adoption law replicated or fulfilled in the foreign jurisdiction, including the status conditions as to domicile or habitual residence;ii) Was the adoption obtained wholly lawfully in the foreign jurisdiction in question;

iii) If so, did the concept of adoption in that jurisdiction substantially conform with the English concept of adoption;

iv) If so, was there any public policy consideration that should mitigate against recognition of the foreign adoption.

 

You can immediately see that whilst the parents can answer yes to (ii) the answer to (i) is going to be no. The Court therefore have to consider how much the concept of adoption in Nepal marries u with the English concept.

 

This is becoming terribly niche, so suffice to say that if you are involved in a case where you need to know the law on a s57 Family Law Act 1986 application to legitimise an overseas adoption, this is the case to find it all in. The Judge DID legitimise the adoption in English law.

 

 

  • In this case I am satisfied that recognition would be manifestly in T’s best interests. Recognition of the adoption at common law would confirm the legal relationship of parent and child that T no doubt assumes exists between her parents and herself. In circumstances where Mr Power is clear that T, as a child adopted from a foreign country with parents who have separated, has an enhanced need for certainty as an adopted child in a trans-racial placement, recognition of her adoption will assist in providing this and will assist T developing and making sense of her identity as she grows older. Recognition will also provide T with greater legal certainty throughout her life with respect to such matters as inheritance rights. I agree with Mr Bagchi’s submission that the balance sheet in respect of recognition contains no entries in the debit column from T’s perspective.

 

 

The Judge then had to consider where T should live and with whom she should spend time. All of this is very fact specific, but there’s one issue of general principle.

If you are ever in the witness box and you are asked whether a parent loves their child, THIS is not necessarily the best way to answer that question

 

 

  • The mother was unable even to acknowledge the father’s love for T, saying that “in as much as he can love her, I imagine he does” and that “it is a domineering and controlling love done within certain conditions“. The mother’s concluded position in oral evidence appeared to be that T was “probably” physically safe in the care of her father but that she was not emotionally safe, claiming “it is damaging for her to remain with her father, in emotional terms“. These firmly held views of the father’s parenting and his physical and emotional care of T are entirely at odds with all of the other evidence before the court.

 

 

 

The Judge considered all of the issues relating to T and made an order that she should live with the father and have contact with the mother, either in the UAE or England.

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Disclosure to the security services

Posted on October 8, 2016 by suesspiciousminds

 

Well, applications for disclosure of care proceedings to the police is something that we are used to, but an application to disclose papers in care proceedings to the Security Services is something rather new – even if with radicalisation we should have seen it coming.

 

X, Y and Z (Disclosure to the Security Service) [2016]

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2016/2400.html

 

In this case which involved not only allegations of radicalisation but also allegations that one of the parents might have deliberately adminstered a harmful drug to the child by way of an intravenous cannula, the Security Services and the police were taking an interest.  There were materials within the care proceedings which were of interest to them and might have assisted in their investigations.

The complicating wrinkle is that whilst we know exactly what happens with documents that are disclosed to the police (the officers in the case read them, they are shared with the CPS and possibly with trial counsel to decide whether there needs to be an application to USE them in the criminal trial), we’re not at all sure what the internal processes of the Security Services are.

And understandably, the Security Services aren’t keen on walking us through their processes and what is involved, particularly to reveal those matters to people they are investigating under terrorism legislation.

The Security Services therefore wanted effective Cate Blanchett to have the documents and make such use of them as they saw fit including sharing them on a ‘need to know’ basis whereas the Court was being urged to not allow such unfettered access.

The compromise that was reached – and the judgment is very helpful on the detail for anyone in this position, was that the papers could be disclosed to the police, the CPS and the Security Services but any onward disclosure by those agencies would have to be with the Court’s permission following an application.

 

The Court set out the principles about how such an application by the Security Services might work (notably whether the parents would be served with it and allowed to attend and make representations)

 

 

  • My decision raises the possibility of the Security Service needing to make an application to this court for permission to disclose the material outside the Service. Whilst such applications are ordinarily straightforward, as set out above, given the nature of the Security Service and its manner of operation, an application in this context presents specific potential difficulties. In particular, the practice of neither confirming nor denying an interest or involvement means that it is unlikely that the Security Service will wish to give notice of such an application in circumstances where, in some situations, simply confirming or denying that an agency is interested in information or seeks information will result in risk that that agency will disclose its interest in, or alert suspects. In addition, the nature of the disclosure sought means that it is likely the Security Service will thereafter wish to adopt a closed procedure. Given the impact of these contentions on the Art 6 rights of the parties, they will need to be the subject of rigorous examination by the court. Within this context, I note that The President’s Guidance recognises that in cases in the family court concerning the issue of radicalisation the court may need to consider the use of closed hearings or special advocates. The Guidance further recognises the need to ensure that the Art 6 rights of all the parties are protected.
  • In seeking to ensure that the Art 6 rights that are engaged are properly protected, as well as fidelity to the common law principles of fairness and natural justice, I further note that both the domestic and European Courts have recognised that proceedings in relation to the intelligence services inevitably raise special problems and might not be capable of being dealt with in the same way as other claims (see Regina (A) v Director of Establishments of the Security Service [2010] 2 AC 1). In the case of R v Shayler [2003] 1 AC 247 Lord Bingham noted as follows in this respect:

 

“The need to preserve the secrecy of information relating to intelligence and military operations in order to counter terrorism, criminal activity, hostile activity and subversion has been recognised by the European Commission and the court in relation to complaints made under article 10 and other articles under the Convention: see Engel v The Netherlands (No 1) (1976) 1 EHRR 647, paras 100–103; Klass v Federal Republic of Germany (1978) 2 EHRR 214, para 48; Leander v Sweden (1987) 9 EHRR 433, para 59; Hadjianastassiou v Greece (1992) 16 EHRR 219, paras 45–47; Esbester v United Kingdom (1994) 18 EHRR CD72, 74; Brind v United Kingdom (1994) 18 EHRR CD76, 83–-84; Murray v United Kingdom (1994) 19 EHRR 193, para 58; Vereniging Weekblad Bluf! v The Netherlands (1995) 20 EHRR 189, paras 35, 40. The thrust of these decisions and judgments has not been to discount or disparage the need for strict and enforceable rules but to insist on adequate safeguards to ensure that the restriction does not exceed what is necessary to achieve the end in question. The acid test is whether, in all the circumstances, the interference with the individual’s Convention right prescribed by national law is greater than is required to meet the legitimate object which the state seeks to achieve. The OSA 1989, as it applies to the appellant, must be considered in that context.”

 

  • There is in my judgment no need to set up any new or elaborate procedure to account for the particular difficulties raised by any permission application that may be made by the Security Service. Rather, it is a question of adapting the existing, well established procedure for such permission applications. The key adaptations will be the need to recognise the greater likelihood that the initial hearing will need to be without notice to the parties to the proceedings (although it will remain incumbent on the Security Service in each instance to justify a without notice application by reference to the principles set out in Re S (Ex Parte Orders) [2001] 1 FLR 308, KY v DD [2012] 2 FLR 200, and Re C (A Child) [2013] EWCA Civ 1412) and the possible use thereafter of some species of closed procedure involving the deployment of special advocates when determining the application for permission.
  • As to the applicable principles for determining whether a closed procedure should be adopted (if requested), the Justice and Security Act 2013 s 6(11) provides for the making of a declaration in any proceedings (other than proceedings in a criminal cause or matter) before the High Court that the proceedings are proceedings in which a closed material application may be made to the court. No such provision is made however, in respect of proceedings in the Family Court. Further, the rules of court which govern the determination of an application for such a declaration, and any subsequent closed material application are those set out in the CPR Part 82. By CPR r 2.1(2), CPR Part 82 does not apply to family proceedings and CPR Part 82 is not otherwise incorporated into the FPR 2010.
  • In the circumstances, whilst it would appear possible to transfer family proceedings to the High Court in order to secure for the court a statutory jurisdiction to consider an application for a declaration pursuant to the Justice and Security Act 2013 s 6 that those family proceedings are proceedings in which a closed material application may be made, absent the incorporation of CPR Part 82 into the FPR 2010 there are at present no procedural rules for determining that application or any subsequent closed material application in the context of family proceedings.
  • Historically however, and notwithstanding it being seemingly well-established that the fundamental principle that a party is entitled to the disclosure of all materials which may be taken into account by the court when reaching a decision adverse to that party can only be qualified or overridden by statute, and even then only expressly and not by implication (see R v Secretary of State for the Home Department, Ex p Simms [2000] 2 AC 115 at 132 and R (Morgan Grenfell & Co Ltd) v Special Comr of Income Tax [2003] 1 AC 563 at [45]), it is clear that special advocates have been utilised on a limited number of occasions in family proceedings to deal with issues of disclosure of sensitive material (see Re T (Wardship: Impact of Police Intelligence) [2010] 1 FLR 1048 at [31]-[34] and [112] and BCC v FZ, AZ, HZ and TVP [2013] 1 FLR 974 at [13] to [48]). In A Chief Constable v YK and Others [2011] 1 FLR 1493 at [112], whilst declining the use of special advocates in that case, Sir Nicholas Wall observed that “there will be undoubtedly be circumstances in family proceedings in which they are appropriate”. The President’s Guidance entitled Radicalisation Cases in the Family Courts dated 8 October 2015 and the President’s Guidance entitled The Role of the Attorney General in Appointing Advocates to the Court of Special Advocates in Family Cases dated 26 March 2016 contemplates the use of closed hearings and special advocates in family proceedings.
  • In the circumstances (and whilst there may remain an argument to be had as to whether the use of some species of closed procedure in the Family Court is permissible absent express statutory provision for the same, or in family proceedings in the High Court pursuant to the Justice and Security Act 2013 absent any rules of procedure governing the same having been promulgated) at any initial hearing of an application by the Security Service for permission to disclose the court will need to consider, inter alia, the following matters:

 

i) Whether the application for permission is properly made without notice in the first instance. The application should contain brief reasons for seeking to pursue the application initially without notice to the parties by reference to the principles set out in Re S (Ex Parte Orders) [2001] 1 FLR 308, KY v DD [2012] 2 FLR 200, and Re C (A Child) [2013] EWCA Civ 1412;

ii) Whether the Security Service invite the court to determine the application for permission on the basis of a closed procedure utilising special advocates;

iii) Whether the application is appropriate to be dealt with by means of the use of a closed procedure utilising special advocates having regard to the guidance set out in Re T (Wardship: Impact of Police Intelligence) [2010] 1 FLR 1048, A Chief Constable v YK and Others [2011] 1 FLR 1493 BCC v FZ, AZ, HZ and TVP [2013] 1 FLR 974, the President’s Guidance entitled Radicalisation Cases in the Family Courts dated 8 October 2015 and the President’s Guidance entitled The Role of the Attorney General in Appointing Advocates to the Court of Special Advocates in Family Cases dated 26 March 2016.

iv) Any further directions for the hearing having regard to the court’s decision in respect of the foregoing matters, again having regard the guidance in the authorities and Practice Guidance enumerated at (iii).

 

 

And here’s a photo of Rupert Penry Jones for Spooks fans  (gratuitous, yes, but I’m sure that a Margot Robbie tenuous connection will come up soon enough to balance it out)

 

Richard Armitage was good, but Rupert was THE GUY

Richard Armitage was good, but Rupert was THE GUY

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LIP Service

Posted on October 8, 2016 by suesspiciousminds

 

Important High Court authority that states that where a case involves both a Litigant in Person AND a lawyer, the lawyer has to ensure that any case management documents and case law is provided to the litigant in person at least THREE WORKING DAYS before a contested hearing.

 

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2016/2365.html

 

This, when you see it in black and white is of course fair. In this case, the litigant in person was handed counsel’s position statement and case law relied upon at the first morning of the final hearing, 114 pages of fresh information, much of it quite dense. That can’t be fair.

It will though necessitate a change in working practice. The reason the documents aren’t provided three days in advance generally is that they just don’t exist at that point. We have got used to a “Just in Time” pace, where the substantial prep for a hearing is done closer and closer to the actual hearing; in part just as a result of volumes of work and in part because with so many cases the position three days before a hearing bears little relationship to the position AT the hearing.

 

This is going to apply to a lot of private law cases, but also care proceedings where there’s an unrepresented Intervenor or party such as grandparents. It will also apply to adoption and leave to oppose adoption cases where it is very rare for the parents to obtain free legal representation.

 

The Judge, Mr Justice Peter Jackson also reminds us of the Practice Direction Rules which state that a bundle must be provided to counsel not less than 3 working days prior to the hearing.

 

The Rules

    • PD 27A is concerned with court bundles in the Family Division and the Family Court. It sets out the basic requirements, but importantly it makes clear at 2.1 that these are subject to specific directions in any particular case. Under paragraph 6:
  • The party preparing the bundle must provide a paginated index to all other parties not less than 4 working days before the hearing
  • Where counsel is instructed, s/he must have a paginated bundle not less than 3 working days before the hearing
  • The bundle (with the exception of the preliminary documents, known as Practice Direction documents) must be lodged with the court not less than 2 working days before the hearing
  • The PD documents must be lodged with the court no later than 11 am on the day before the hearing. The rule does not provide for service on the other parties, but the implication must be that the document will be sent to them no later than that

 

 

Hands up anyone who is regularly experiencing that.

 

Ah, I see Ms Azim of counsel is rising to her feet. To agree that she always receives bundles three working days before the hearing in accordance with PD27A ?  Not quite

 

http://www.familylaw.co.uk/news_and_comment/this-lawyer-s-life-ping-goes-the-practice#.V_ixssk1Ouc

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Revoking adoption and IVF mistakes (again)

Posted on September 13, 2016 by suesspiciousminds

 

 

 

The President of the Family Division has been at the forefront of the litigation about IVF clinics that managed to make a mess of the paperwork such that people who fully intended to both be legal parents of a child conceived in that way have ended up not being legal parents and having to go through cost and emotional turmoil. Purely due to failures in using the correct forms. It is a trivial mistake, but one (as you can see from this piece) has huge emotional consequences and cost for those involved.

Case O (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008) [2016] EWHC 2273 (Fam) (13 September 2016)

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2016/2273.html

 

The President notes that there are approximately 90 cases of such anomalies, where due to failure with forms and paperwork parents who intended in good faith to become legal parents of the child they were conceiving with help of the clinic did not actually become the legal parent.

 

In this case, when the parents were told of the mistake, the child had not yet been born.

 

 

 

 

17.When told by the clinic of the mistake which had been made, X and Y were, to use X’s word, “devastated.” Y was at home – in fact she was far advanced in her pregnancy with C2 – when Barts telephoned:

 

 

 

“They told me that I was not [C1’s] legal parent … I rang [X], instantly, I was sobbing. I could not believe what I had been told. Fortunately [she] was very close to home. When I received that telephone call I felt like my whole world had been ripped apart. I was no longer [C1’s] mummy. This still remains very raw.”

 

X remembers Y telephoning:

 

“[She] called me, [she] was sobbing and I could barely make out what she was saying.”

 

The legal advice they got at the time (which was probably right at the time – or at least what most lawyers would have said was the only answer) , before Theis J found the alternative route) was that there would have to be an adoption.

 

 

18.X and Y were told both by the clinic and by the solicitors they instructed – not those involved in the present proceedings – that the only solution was for Y to adopt C1. I have referred on previous occasions to how utterly inappropriate adoption is as a remedy in cases like this: see In re A, para 71(vii), and Case I, para 24. However, as I observed in Case I, para 23, my impression is that this erroneous view, shared at the time both by the HFEA and by the clinics whose actions I have had to consider, and, I might add, by many family lawyers, was based on assumptions, derived from Cobb J’s judgment in AB v CD and the Z Fertility Clinic [2013] EWHC 1418 (Fam), [2013] 2 FLR 1357, which were widespread until, in February 2015, Theis J gave judgment in X v Y (St Bartholomew’s Hospital Centre for Reproductive Medicine Intervening) [2015] EWFC 13, [2016] PTSR 1.

 

 

19.Y accordingly made an application to the Family Court to adopt C1. X and Y found the adoption process – and I can well understand why – very intrusive, very hurtful and a total invasion of their privacy. Y’s account is telling: “I felt I was stared at and judged. I felt that everyone analysed us.” But more fundamentally, as X put it, “the whole adoption process felt wrong.” Y’s anguished words are heart-breaking:

 

 

 

“I feel like a piece of me has been taken away from me. I cannot even start to explain the pain it has brought to us all. We tried our hardest to do things properly and yet it’s like I no longer feel like I am [C1’s] mummy. I was [C1’s] mummy but now I am [C1’s] adoptive mummy. We do not want [C1] to be different to [C2] … We feel disappointed and let down by Barts. We planned our family carefully. We want [C1’s] parenthood to be what it should have been. Adoption is not what we wanted.”

 

X’s words are equally raw:

 

“It broke my heart when I had to hand in [C1’s] original birth certificate. I am so upset that [C1] now has a different status as an adopted child. [C1] is now different to [C2], when [this] should not have been.”

20.The report of the adoption social worker prepared for the adoption proceedings contains this important passage:

 

 

 

“This application is quite unique.” After setting out the circumstances, the writer continued: “The couple have sought legal advice and have been advised that the only way to remedy this is for [Y] to formally adopt [C1]. The couple have found this situation extremely distressing and in all honesty do not want this process. However they want everything for [C1] to be proper and legal and for [Y] to be recognised legally as [C1’s] parent, as was always intended.”

21.In due course – this was all in 2014, before Theis J had given her important judgment – the District Judge made an adoption order. It was not a happy occasion for X and Y. In her report prepared for the present proceedings, C1’s guardian records their feelings:

 

 

 

“The description of that day was very emotional. “There were lots of other couples there celebrating. It was a special day for those families. It was a miserable day for us, a defeat, a horrible occasion.””

 

Having learned of the newer approach of the Family Courts, to fix the deficiencies in the process and make declarations of parentage which would achieve the legal status as the child’s parents without adoption, the couple sought advice and made an application to revoke the adoption order.

 

As readers of the blog will know, that’s a very rare application, and less than a handful of such cases have ever succeeded. Most reported attempts have failed.

 

 

22.The guardian’s report is insightful, empathetic and humane. It is a powerful and moving exploration of what has gone wrong:

 

 

 

“[The adoption] was an unwelcome, unwanted and intrusive process but one in which [Y] and [X] felt compelled to participate for they wanted legal certainty for [C1] and were told they had no other options. They are now, understandably, further distressed to learn that other remedies may have been available to them. They are seeking a Declaration of Parentage and a revocation of the adoption order. I unequivocally support their applications.

 

… The adoption application was made with great reluctance. Particularly cruel was having to hand in the original, and very precious, birth certificate. “We are private people. It was horrible having to talk to strangers about such a personal part of our lives. It was like being public property.” [Y] talked about being asked to leave the room by the Cafcass Reporting Officer who witnessed [X’s] consent. She described sitting in the kitchen and crying.”

23.The guardian comments that at no point in the process did anyone raise any queries about the unusual background circumstances or ask whether there might be a different route to securing parenthood for C1. She continues:

 

 

 

“[C1] now has a new birth certificate and a new status as an adopted child – something [Y] and [X] now know to be completely unnecessary, having been made aware that an alternative could have been made available to them … [They] feel a level of stigma about the adoption and an acute awareness of [C1’s] difference to [C2]. They are concerned that [C1] will worry about why [C1] was adopted and [C2] is not. They are concerned about how to explain this … They are upset and angry on [C1’s] behalf – and anyone hearing their account cannot help but be moved. “We are honourable, honest people. We believed the system and we did what we were told.” They are disappointed that other professionals at the time did not question the adoption process or suggest they seek alternative advice. They feel as if the adoption was entered into under false pretences. I consider their sentiments are both understandable and entirely justified and that [C1] should not have been adopted.”

24.Recognising that revocation of an adoption order is “a most unusual step”, the guardian is nonetheless unequivocal in her recommendations:

 

 

 

“However, from [C1’s] perspective, I can identify absolutely no need or justification for an adoption order, given that a realistic alternative would certainly have been pursued at the time had the parents received different legal advice … On [C1’s] behalf, I have no hesitation in recommending that the court revoke the adoption order and replace it with a Declaration of Parentage – the latter order being one that will equally meet [C1’s] welfare needs and interests. It will afford [C1] the permanence and security that all children should have, and will give effect to the legal relationship that had always been intended when the parents had the fertility treatment. It will remove the unnecessary stigma of [C1’s] status as an adopted child and afford [C1] parity with [C2].”

 

The guardian concludes with the hope that the original birth certificate be returned, this document having, as she says, “enormous significance” for X, Y and C1.

25.I wholeheartedly agree with the guardian’s observations and unequivocally accept her recommendations. For all the reasons she gives, C1’s welfare demands that the adoption order be revoked. Common humanity to X and Y demands the same. They have suffered very greatly from failings in the ‘system’. In the circumstances I have described, to deny them the relief they seek would seem an affront to justice. But does the law enable me to make the desired order? In my judgment, it does.

 

 

26.I have been taken to the authorities: see In re F(R) (An Infant) [1970] 1 QB 385, Re RA (Minors) (1974) 4 Fam Law 182, In re F (Infants) (Adoption Order: Validity) [1977] Fam 165, Re M (Minors) (Adoption) [1991] 1 FLR 458, In re B (Adoption: Jurisdiction to Set Aside) [1995] Fam 239 (affirming Re B (Adoption: Setting Aside) [1995] 1 FLR 1), Re K (Adoption and Wardship) [1997] 2 FLR 221, Webster v Norfolk County Council and the Children (by their Children’s Guardian) [2009] EWCA Civ 59, [2009] 1 FLR 1378, Re W (Adoption Order: Set Aside and Leave to Oppose) [2010] EWCA Civ 1535, [2011] 1 FLR 2153, Re PW (Adoption) [2013] 1 FLR 96, Re W (Inherent Jurisdiction: Permission Application: Revocation and Adoption Order) [2013] EWHC 1957 (Fam), [2013] 2 FLR 1609, Re C (Adoption Proceedings: Change of Circumstances) [2013] EWCA Civ 431, [2013] 2 FLR 1393, and PK v Mr and Mrs K [2015] EWHC 2316 (Fam). See also, in relation to the revocation of a parental order made under section 54 of the 2008 Act, G v G (Parental Order: Revocation) [2012] EWHC 1979 (Fam), [2013] 1 FLR 286.

 

 

27.There is no need for me to embark upon any detailed analysis of the case-law. For present purposes it is enough to draw attention to a few key propositions:

 

 

 

  1. i) Under the inherent jurisdiction, the High Court can, in an appropriate case, revoke an adoption order. In relation to this jurisdictional issue I unhesitatingly prefer the view shared by Bodey J in Re W (Inherent Jurisdiction: Permission Application: Revocation and Adoption Order) [2013] EWHC 1957 (Fam), [2013] 2 FLR 1609, para 6, and Pauffley J in PK v Mr and Mrs K [2015] EWHC 2316 (Fam), para 4, to the contrary view of Parker J in Re PW (Adoption) [2013] 1 FLR 96, para 1.

 

  1. ii) The effect of revoking an adoption order is to restore the status quo ante: see Re W (Adoption Order: Set Aside and Leave to Oppose) [2010] EWCA Civ 1535, [2011] 1 FLR 2153, paras 11-12.

 

iii) However, “The law sets a very high bar against any challenge to an adoption order. An adoption order once lawfully and properly made can be set aside “only in highly exceptional and very particular circumstances””: Re C (Adoption Proceedings: Change of Circumstances) [2013] EWCA Civ 431, [2013] 2 FLR 1393, para 44, quoting Webster v Norfolk County Council and the Children (by their Children’s Guardian) [2009] EWCA Civ 59, [2009] 1 FLR 1378, para 149. As Pauffley J said in PK v Mr and Mrs K [2015] EWHC 2316 (Fam), para 14, “public policy considerations ordinarily militate against revoking properly made adoption orders and rightly so.”

 

  1. iv) An adoption order regularly made, that is, an adoption order made in circumstances where there was no procedural irregularity, no breach of natural justice and no fraud, cannot be set aside either on the ground of mere mistake (In re B (Adoption: Jurisdiction to Set Aside) [1995] Fam 239) or even if there has been a miscarriage of justice (Webster v Norfolk County Council and the Children (by their Children’s Guardian) [2009] EWCA Civ 59, [2009] 1 FLR 1378).

 

  1. v) The fact that the circumstances are highly exceptional does not of itself justify revoking an adoption order. After all, one would hope that the kind of miscarriage of justice exemplified by Webster v Norfolk County Council and the Children (by their Children’s Guardian) [2009] EWCA Civ 59, [2009] 1 FLR 1378, is highly exceptional, yet the attempt to have the adoption order set aside in that case failed.

 

 

 

28.I bear in mind, also, two important observations that appear in the authorities. The first is the observation of Sir Thomas Bingham MR in In re B (Adoption: Jurisdiction to Set Aside) [1995] Fam 239, page 251:

 

 

 

“The act of adoption has always been regarded in this country as possessing a peculiar finality. This is partly because it affects the status of the person adopted, and indeed adoption modifies the most fundamental of human relationships, that of parent and child. It effects a change intended to be permanent and concerning three parties. The first of these are the natural parents of the adopted person, who by adoption divest themselves of all rights and responsibilities in relation to that person. The second party is the adoptive parents, who assume the rights and responsibilities of parents in relation to the adopted person. And the third party is the subject of the adoption, who ceases in law to be the child of his or her natural parents and becomes the child of the adoptive parents.”

 

The other is that of Hedley J in G v G (Parental Order: Revocation) [2012] EWHC 1979 (Fam), [2013] 1 FLR 286, para 33:

 

“the adoption authorities show that the feelings of an injured party are not germane necessarily to consideration of an application to set aside. The hurt of the applicants in both In re B (Adoption: Jurisdiction to Set Aside) [1995] Fam 239 … and Webster v Norfolk County Council and the Children (by their Children’s Guardian) [2009] EWCA Civ 59, [2009] 1 FLR 1378, was immeasurably greater than here and it availed them nothing.”

29.The present case is unprecedented, indeed far removed on its facts from any of the previously reported cases. The central fact, even if no-one recognised it at the time, is that when Y applied for the adoption order she was already, not merely in fact but also in law, C1’s mother. It follows that the entire adoption process was carried on while everyone, including the District Judge, was labouring under a fundamental mistake, not, as in In re B (Adoption: Jurisdiction to Set Aside) [1995] Fam 239, a mistake of fact but a mistake of law, and, moreover, a mistake of law which went to the very root of the adoptive process; indeed, a mistake of law which went to the very root of the need for an adoption order at all. The entire adoption proceeded upon what, in law, was a fundamentally false basis.

 

 

30.Flowing also from this is that the consequence of an order revoking the adoption order will in this case be fundamentally different from in any of the other cases. There will be no uprooting of C1 from one set of parents and return to another set of parents; C1 will remain, as hitherto ever since birth, with the same people, the people who, to C1, as also to X and Y, are and always have been C1’s parents in every sense of the word, parents emotionally, psychologically, socially and legally. X and Y always intended to be, and in law always were, C1’s parents.

 

 

31.To make an order revoking the adoption order, as I propose to do, will not merely right a wrong; it will recognise a legal and factual reality and put an end to a legal and factual fiction, what Ms Fottrell rightly described as a wholly contrived position. And it will avoid for the future – and this can only be for C1’s welfare, now, into the future and, indeed throughout life – all the damaging consequences to which X, Y and the guardian have drawn attention. As Ms Fottrell put it, C1’s welfare will be better served by restoring the status quo ante and setting aside the adoption order. I agree. I can detect no convincing argument of public policy pointing in the other direction; on the contrary, in this most unusual and highly exceptional case public policy marches in step with justice to X, Y and C1; public policy demands that I make the order which so manifestly is required in C1’s best interests.

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Woman kept in a cage

Posted on September 12, 2016 by suesspiciousminds

 

This case, involving an 18 year old woman who had lived in England until she was nearly 17 and then went to live with her father in Saudi Arabia, attracted a lot of press attention – the headline of this piece is how it was portrayed in a lot of the Press coverage. The story was that this woman was locked up by her father, to keep her away from men, and was locked up in a cage – the High Court made orders that she be released (although with an acknowledgment that there was nothing the English Court could do if the father didn’t comply)

 

The case is now reported, so we can see the facts.  Al Jeffery v Al Jeffery (Vulnerable Adult : British Citizen) 2016

 

Not "JEFFREY" - Al-Jeffrey (But on fleek to find a Rainbow picture that has a court vibe. Yes. I am aware that UK Judges don't use gavels)

Not “JEFFREY” – Al-Jeffrey
(But on fleek to find a Rainbow picture that has a court vibe. Yes. I am aware that UK Judges don’t use gavels)

 

 

(Let’s be honest, when the other members of Rainbow zipped up Zippy’s mouth, it is hard not to see that as a deprivation of Zippy’s liberty)

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2016/2151.html

 

In a similar way to the “woman who sparkled” case, once again, the Press don’t come out of it too well – they had access to this information, and of course used it to doorstep the woman’s relatives. Stay classy, San Diego.

 

I am aware that this has led to considerable publicity in print and online, much of it under a headline “Woman kept in a cage” or words to that effect, the accuracy of which I will later address. I was told (and if it is true, I regret it) that this led in turn to press harassing members of the family in Wales

 

The ‘cage’ element is obviously the major motif of the story,  but there is perhaps more to that than one might think from the Press coverage

 

 

The “cage”

 

  • I refer under a discrete heading to the issue of a “cage” because I am aware that this has given rise to some rather sensational headlines in the media. Further, in two national newspapers last Saturday (it may have been in more) I myself saw large colour pictures of the photograph now at bundle p.C84. It is the case that Amina herself has referred to her being kept “in a cage” or “in a massive cage”. This may have led headline writers and/or their readers to visualise that she was being kept actually in a cuboid cage of the type that an animal might be kept in with some form of bars all around and on top of it. That is not what happened; and the purpose of this section of this judgment is to create some objectivity and proportionality, and to describe as best I can what appears actually to have happened. I stress, however, that I have not heard any oral evidence and I have only seen the two photographs at pp.C84 and 85.
  • Within the father’s flat there were two vertical barred panels. One, now seen at p.84, is yellow. It is a large metal framework of bars upon which is affixed, probably by welding, a metal diamond shaped lattice grille. Each diamond shape in the lattice is smaller than an adult hand. It is the sort of security structure that could be fixed over windows or doors to prevent entry, or could be used as a security partition in, for instance, a store room. It is a form of caging, but not itself a cage. The other, now seen at p.C85, is, in the photograph, a mid-brown colour. It is roughly the size and shape of a full height vertical door. It consists of a hinged metal frame with metal vertical bars through which an adult could not squeeze. It is the sort of security structure that is occasionally seen as an added security door or gate outside a front door, or could be used as a security door or gate in a corridor. It, too, is caging, but not itself a cage.
  • The father admits that both these structures were affixed within his flat. He says through Mr. Scott-Manderson that the yellow lattice grille is simply affixed over external windows to prevent Amina from shouting out to the street below, the flat being on the fourth floor. From the appearance in the photograph at p.84 I am sceptical about this. Amina herself is in the foreground, with the grille beyond her, so the windows could not be in the foreground but off the photograph. Beyond the grille there does, indeed, appear to be a wooden framework which appears to contain glass panes, but they do not have the appearance of external windows. They do have the appearance of an internal glazed screen or partition, like a “room divider”. I say that, because it appears from the photograph that in part of the area beyond the grille there is a hanging cupboard or something similar, and above that the appearance of artificial electric light shining through from beyond. The father says that the glass panes are, indeed, external windows and that the light is merely a reflection from a light within the room. The father says that the purpose of the brown barred door or gate seen at p.C85 was, indeed, to restrict Amina’s access to parts of the flat, including the front door, but that it was removed several months ago. He describes it as a “barrier partition”.
  • On the father’s own account, the purpose of both these structures was to restrict Amina, whether from access to parts of the flat and the front door, or from simply looking or calling out of the window. Further, the father does admit that when he himself leaves the flat to go to his part time work he does lock her in. I conclude that Amina was not literally in a cage, but that her freedom of movement was, and is, admittedly constrained in a way that I would regard as severe, having regard to her age and full capacity. She was, and, so far as I am aware, still is, deprived of her liberty and could be described as “caged”, although not “in a cage”.

 

 

It reads more as being in a room that had a barred window and that she was not permitted to leave the home and had very restricted access to the outside world – as Holman J says, she was deprived of her liberty and could be described as being caged, but she was not ‘in a cage’

 

[Google image has let me down here – I really wanted a picture of Andromeda from Clash of the Titans (1981) in her gilded cage that Calibos was keeping her in.  With a vulture jailer, no less, who would pick up the cage in his beak and carry her off… But no joy. Bah. Anyway, here’s a picture of her as she is awaiting for Poseidon to “UNLEASH THE KRAKEN”  and her liberty is definitely being deprived]

 

There was no doubt in my mind aged 11 that I wanted to rescue this lady

There was no doubt in my mind aged 11 that I wanted to rescue this lady

 

The Judge had made as part of his order that the father must allow his daughter to speak to her solicitor in confidence to provide instructions. That did not happen

 

 

  • Notwithstanding the father’s position as recited in the order and summarised above, the order made three orders, each qualified as being “without prejudice to the issue of jurisdiction”: [i] continuing forced marriage protection orders; [ii] for the immediate return of Amina to England and Wales; and [iii] directing the father to make Amina available for an interview at the British Consulate prior to the fact finding hearing. By the time of the next directions hearing on 5 July 2016, Amina and the father were represented respectively by Mr. Henry Setright QC and Mr. Marcus Scott-Manderson QC who represent them again at this hearing. The order recited that the court had determined that “arrangements must be made for [Amina] to give instructions without fetter or any perception of fetter to her solicitors privately and confidentially” at the British Consulate in Jeddah. Paragraph 15 of the order itself ordered the father to facilitate the attendance of Amina at the consulate “… in order to enable her to speak privately and confidentially to her solicitors from those premises, for the purpose of giving instructions for, and approving, the statement” which another part of the same order ordered Amina to file and serve. I will for convenience refer to that particular provision of the order with regard to attendance at the consulate as “the paragraph 15 order”. Overarchingly, the order of 5 July repeated by reference the order to cause the immediate return of Amina to England and Wales.
  • The father has not returned Amina to England and Wales and has not complied with the paragraph 15 order. As a result, Miss Hutchinson has not been able to speak privately and confidentially and without fetter or any perception of fetter to Amina, and she has not in fact been able to communicate at all with Amina since June 2016. As to the father’s non-compliance, Mr. Scott-Manderson said at the hearing that:

 

“The father consciously decided in breach of paragraph 15 not to take her to, or make her available at, the consulate, although he knew all the detailed arrangements which had been made and no excuse or explanation (e.g. ill health, car breakdown etc.) is put forward. There is an impasse.”

The result was that the fact finding element of the hearing which had been fixed for last week was completely ineffective. Mr. Setright and Miss Hutchinson have no recent instructions from their client. They have no “proof of evidence” from her. They have been unable to take her through, or seek her instructions upon, the several statements and exhibits filed by or on behalf of the father. And, of course, they have been unable to prepare any statement from her. The father did, as required by another paragraph of the order of 5 July 2016, take Amina to the Hilton Hotel in Jeddah last Monday at the start of the hearing, from which evidence was to be given by each of them by video link (or, as I was told on the day, by Skype) to the Royal Courts of Justice. However, Mr. Setright was, in my view quite rightly, unwilling to embark on any consideration of oral evidence in those circumstances. It is elementary that a client is not, as it were, put into the witness box blind. It is elementary that an advocate does not cross-examine without having his own client’s instructions as to what the case is. There were in any event no safeguards of any kind as to the circumstances of Amina in the hotel or what pressures, influence or “fetter” she might be under. For these reasons, too, I myself would in any event have been quite unwilling to embark upon the projected “fact finding” exercise.

 

  • I wish, therefore, to make crystal clear that the reason I did not, and could not, embark upon the “fact finding” that had been scheduled for this hearing was, and is, entirely because of the conscious decision of the father not to comply with the paragraph 15 order. It is his responsibility, not mine, that I am impelled to decide the outcome of this hearing on a consideration of the documents, untested and un-supplemented by any oral evidence. Precisely because that evidence is lacking, I do not by this judgment make any considered judicial finding as to any of the disputed facts. I merely record them, although I must comment upon them.
  • Although the father consciously did not comply with the paragraph 15 order, with its more rigorous terms and safeguards and the express purpose of enabling unfettered communication with Miss Hutchinson, he had complied with the earlier order of 12 May to the extent of permitting Amina to have a meeting at the Hilton Hotel in Jeddah with a British consular representative, Amna Ghulam. The father personally was not in the room. However, he insisted on a lady being present who has been described during the hearing as “the father’s representative”. That lady made a note, which has since been typed up in English and is now at bundle p.C165, and she has made a statement that her note is accurate. In view of para.6(b) of the order of 5 July 2016, I will omit parts which make or include allegations against individuals other than the father who is now the sole respondent to these proceedings, but the note requires to be read in full by any court subsequently engaged in this case.

 

“Note: Amina appears dishevelled, strangely unlike her sister covered with a niqab. She appears to have written ‘kill’ or ‘killing’ on her right wrist with blue ink and red or pink ink.

When asked what were her (Amina’s) future plans, if she wanted to stay in Saudi Arabia or if she wanted to leave the country, Amina responded that she would like to leave the country but her family are not allowing her to leave.

Amina stated that she has been locked up in her room for over a year.

Amina stated whilst the British court case is continuing in the UK her family have informed her that she will only get her freedom (study and work) only after the case in the UK closes.

… Since [she dropped the last case] Amina stated she was abused and locked up, which is why she would like to return to the UK.

When asked why is her older sister allowed to have a phone and she is dressed well and not covered, Amina responded that two years ago she kissed a guy (in KAUST [a university in Saudi Arabia]) who proposed to her twice but her family refused him.

Amina stated her family manipulated her younger sister even before she came to Saudi Arabia that Amina is an evil girl and that she should not speak to Amina. Amina continued to say that when her younger sister came to Saudi she already had a bad image of [Amina] but when she came to Saudi Arabia she found a locked up girl with a shaved head.

…

… [Her father] is the one who locks me up. And the reason for that is because she had kissed a guy two years ago.

Amina was asked if she is still locked up. She responded that the metal bars are no longer in her room but she is still locked up in the house and she is not allowed to use the phone or internet.

…

… Amina confirmed that the reason why she ran away and build a case … is because she wants to study, work and get married.

When asked if she wants to get married by her way or her family way, Amina responded that she does not care who she marries, she wants to get out in any way possible …

When asked why she chose to come back and live with her family after running away and not choose the shelter, Amina responded that she did not have the choice, the police threatened her with jail if she did not return to her father. She continued to say that her father has the choice to take her to prison and that he always threatens her with it, she also added that the Saudi police advised her father to take her to prison after hearing what she did.

Amina stated that she would like to inform the judge that she is put in a difficult situation because she will get in trouble with her family if the case does not end. But at the same time she does not trust her family.

When asked to clarify what she wanted, Amina responded that her family wants her to say that she lied about her accusations. She stated that it is not true. And that the judge should know that she is not lying. Amina is afraid that if the case continues her father will continue to hit her.

When asked if her father still hits her Amina responded yes. She stated that her father recently threatened her that if she decides to leave he would take action against her.

Amina continued to say that her father pretends to be cooperative with the Saudi authorities, she stated that he once informed a Saudi judge that if she wanted to complain about him he would take her to the police himself. Amina stated that she had asked her father to take her to the police station after he hit her and strangled her, but he refused.

When asked again if her father hits her, Amina responded yes …

Amina is afraid for her safety if she cannot leave Saudi Arabia. She asked that the court would allow the British Embassy to check up on her every month … She also stated that [she was] prevented from going to the bathroom for one month, she was forced to urinate in a cup. She stated that she would get punished when she used her room as a toilet.

Amina requested to speak with her lawyer.

…

By the end of the meeting Amina had a phone conversation with her lawyer in the UK.

A note was passed under the table to the British representative.”

 

  • The conversation with the lawyer in the UK was not with Miss Hutchinson but with her assistant, Mrs. Wendy Ramus. I do not know what was said, being privileged, but in any event it was not the private, confidential and lengthy opportunity to take instructions without fetter which the later paragraph 15 order required. The consular representative, Amna Ghulam, with whom the meeting took place, has supplied to Miss Hutchinson by email her own account of the meeting. The existence of the email has been disclosed to the court and to the father’s lawyers but the contents are stated by Mr. Setright to be privileged, as the intended purpose of the meeting (thwarted by the presence of the father’s representative) had been to provide a conduit for information and instructions from Amina to her solicitor, and her lawyers here (who cannot obtain her instructions) do not consider that they can, or should, waive the privilege. As the father’s representative’s note was, of course, prepared in the first instance for the father, I do not know what else may have been said which the father’s representative decided not to record. Mr. Setright indicated in veiled terms, but in open court, that Amina’s team consider that Amina could be at heightened risk if her father saw the consular representative’s own email. The note of the father’s representative refers at the end to “a note was passed under the table to the British representative”. As I understand it, that note has not itself been transmitted here to London. Photo shots of it made by a mobile phone have been. They are apparently hard to decipher, but in any event Mr. Setright asserts that similar considerations apply to it as to the consular representative’s own email record and they claim privilege. I have not seen it and I do not know what it says.

 

 

Far from what was needed, which was the chance for this woman to talk in private with her lawyers, to be able to speak freely and to obtain advice.

 

It was a very difficult scenario. On the one hand, the Court was looking at someone who was an adult living in another country – a country where rules and law and customs are not exactly the same as ours and the potential of interfering with that sovereign state, and on the other there was a British citizen crying out for help and no prospect of it arriving if the English Courts did not intervene.

 

Discretion

 

  • The question now is whether, in my judicial discretion, I should actually exercise jurisdiction and make an order and, if so, what order. I have, indeed, approached this case with very great caution and circumspection. I have had firmly in mind from first to last the risk of exorbitance. Caution and circumspection obviously do not depend on the length of hearing alone, but I did hear this case over four long days, during which I heard sustained argument from very experienced leading counsel. I have had very considerable “thinking time”, both during the hearing and since, while preparing this judgment. I have in fact moved during the course of the hearing from a starting position in which I openly expressed extreme doubt and reservation whether I should actually exercise a discretion to make an order, to the position (which, anticipating the outcome, I now disclose) that I should do so. In my view, the admitted or core facts of this case all point to Amina being under a constraint from her father which, having regard to her age, is severe. Her father admits to locking her in the flat for several hours when he goes out. He admits that until recently the barred door in the photograph at p.C85 was in position, restricting her access to parts of the flat, including the kitchen. He admits that the yellow grille at p.C84 is still in place, and although he says that its purpose is only to prevent her from shouting out of the window, that in itself is a constraint upon her means of communication with the outside world. As I explained at para.33 above, I am sceptical that that grille is not in fact restricting her movement within the flat as well.
  • I agree with Mr. Setright that the terms of the document of the Saudi Arabian court dated 12 April 2016 at bundle p.D12 themselves indicate a person under severe constraint. Although now aged 21, she undertakes not to challenge her father’s authority over all her affairs and not to leave the house without his permission. The father’s own evidence in para.15 of his statement dated 16 June 2016 is that if she were to run away, the police, far from offering her protection from her father, would put her in prison. The very recent events in this case, and the father’s refusal to comply with para.15 and to allow Amina even to have unrestricted confidential and secure access to her consul and her own solicitor, vividly illustrate and underline the degree of continuing control and constraint being exercised. Overarchingly, she is under constraint if, at the age of 21, she wishes to leave Saudi Arabia, whether to travel to Britain or anywhere else, and is being prevented by her father from doing so.
  • In all these ways, Amina is disabled from functioning as an independent adult, not merely just out of childhood at the age of 18, but already aged 21. Amina is a citizen of Saudi Arabia. These constraints may be acceptable and even the norm under the law and culture of Saudi Arabia. But she is also a British citizen, and under the law and culture of Britain they are not. They are, indeed, totally unacceptable, and do represent in the words of Munby J in Re SA “… some significant curtailment of the freedom to do those things which in this country free men and women are entitled to do”. If Amina chooses voluntarily to remain in Saudi Arabia, of which she is a citizen, she must, of course, respect and adhere to the law and culture of that society. But the current constraint is denying to her the right to choose to be British and to live in Britain and to respect, adhere to and be regulated by the law and culture of British society. It is true that she is currently present and habitually resident in Saudi Arabia, but that results from her obedience to the will of her father in 2012. It is accepted that she did not travel there voluntarily and of her own free will.
  • In my view, the current circumstances are such that this British person does require protection, in the language of Lady Hale and Lord Toulson in Re B at para.60; and she is currently in a peril from which she requires to be “rescued”, in the language of Lord Sumption in that case at para.87. Nevertheless, I must exercise great caution and not be exorbitant. There are other factors which weigh in favour of exercising jurisdiction. They include that not only is she British, but she was born and brought up and educated in Britain until the age of almost 17. This is a very significant factor. I would take a very different view of this case if Amina had been born and lived her whole life in Saudi Arabia but happened to be British by descent. Her mother and several of her siblings currently still live in Britain and, although she may be estranged from them, their presence here still indicates the continuing connections between this family and Britain.
  • However, there are also powerful factors which militate against exercising jurisdiction. Her father is Saudi and Saudi alone. She herself has dual nationality. The Hague Convention on Certain Questions Relating to the Conflict of Nationality Laws done at the Hague on 12 April 1930 provides at Article 4 that “a State may not afford diplomatic protection to one of its nationals against a State whose nationality such person also possesses”. Britain is a signatory to that Convention, although Saudi Arabia is not. The view of the British Government, expressed in para.3.2 of its Home Office Nationality Instructions, is that:

 

“Commonly known as the ‘Master Nationality Rule’, the practical effect of this Article [viz Article 4] is that where a person is a national of, for example, two States (A and B), and is in the territory of State A, then State B has no right to claim that person as its national or to intervene on that person’s behalf …”

This may in part explain the position taken by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in their letter of 14 December 2015 that “Amina is a dual national … there is little that we can do to assist her”. But I am being asked to make an order against the father personally. I am not being asked to “afford diplomatic protection” or in any way to act “against” the State of Saudi Arabia in the language of Article 4, and there is no question of my doing so. In any event, in Re A the child concerned had dual British and Pakistani nationality and that was not suggested by the judgment of Baroness Hale to represent an obstacle to the exercise of jurisdiction, save to the extent that dual nationality was one of the considerations which had been raised by Mr. Setright and referred to in para.64.

 

  • The fact that Amina is present and habitually resident in Saudi Arabia undoubtedly militates against the exercise of jurisdiction, but is tempered in this case by the circumstances in which she came to be there: her father’s insistence and command, from which she has since been unable to escape. In Re B at para.59 Lady Hale and Lord Toulson identified “three main reasons” for caution when deciding whether to exercise jurisdiction. First, that to do so may conflict with the jurisdictional scheme applicable between the countries in question. There is no jurisdictional scheme between Britain, or Wales and England and Saudi Arabia. Second, that it may result in conflicting decisions in the two countries. In view of the proceedings in Saudi Arabia in April 2016, this is, of course, a weighty consideration in the present case. As I understand it, however, the “decision” in the Saudi court in April was not so much a decision imposed by the court in the exercise of its own judgment; rather, it was that court expressing its approval of that which the parties themselves had agreed. Whilst Mr. Scott-Manderson argues that Amina’s more appropriate remedy is to make some application of her own to that court, her ability freely to gain access to that court may itself be limited by the constraints, and she certainly has no means with which to fund a lawyer. Further, I regret that I lack confidence that that court would permit and enforce against the father that she is able to return to Britain, since Saudi Arabia does not recognise dual nationality. The court might not, therefore, recognise what might be the fundamental basis of her application, namely her British nationality.
  • The third reason identified by Lady Hale and Lord Toulson is that it may result in unenforceable orders. In relation to that reason, they said on the facts of that case that “it is possible that there are steps which an English court could take to persuade the respondent to obey the order”, although, so far as I am aware, those steps were not further identified. Enforcement is undoubtedly a significant issue in the present case. Generally, courts do not make orders which they cannot effectively enforce, although almost daily judges of the Family Division do just that in relation to children who have been abducted to countries which are not parties to the Hague Convention on the civil aspects of international child abduction. I accept that there is little or nothing that this court could do to enforce against the father in Saudi Arabia any order which it may make if he was determined not to obey or comply with it. There are no conventions in operation between Wales and England, or Britain and Saudi Arabia. There is no reciprocity. The courts of Saudi Arabia would not even recognise the basis upon which I claim and assert jurisdiction, namely the British nationality of Amina, since the State of Saudi Arabia does not recognise dual nationality and, therefore, her British nationality.
  • The father has no assets here of which I am aware, unlike in the case of Re B (see para.21 of the judgment of Parker J at [2013] EWHC 3298 (Fam) at the remitted hearing), but that does not preclude the persuasive force of an order, particularly one made after a very full and thorough hearing in which, although not personally present, the father engaged and fully participated and was fully heard throughout. The situation that will pertain after this judgment is very different from the situation that pertained under the earlier orders, many of which were expressed to be “without prejudice to the issue of jurisdiction”. By this judgment the issue of jurisdiction has been resolved. Further, the father himself voluntarily chose to live for many years in Wales; to educate and to bring his children up here; and to subject himself to both the protection of, and the constraints of, the laws of Wales and England and the legal system of Wales and England. His wife, from whom he is not estranged, and several of his children continue to live here. He may later, if not sooner, wish or have reason to visit Wales or England again, but he could not safely do so if he remained in breach of a significant order of this court, for he would be liable to be punished (if still in breach) for his continuing contempt of court.
  • For all these reasons, I consider that, although the father may ultimately decide to defy any order I make, this court does have considerable moral and also practical “hold” over him. There is no reason why I should assume or suppose that he will not obey any proportionate order which I may make; and I consider that I should proceed on the assumption that he will obey it.
  • There is one further factor to which I should refer. In Re A at para.65(vi) Baroness Hale referred to the absence of any enquiry being made about how the children in that case were. In Re B at para.86 Lord Sumption referred, rather similarly, to an independent assessment of the situation of the child abroad and said “unless the facts were already clear, that would be the least that a court should do before it could be satisfied that she should be compulsorily returned to this country”. This led Mr. Scott-Manderson to submit that, before making any stronger order, this court should first direct or request some similar assessment of Amina by some appropriate authority in Saudi Arabia. There is, however, the significant difference that Re B concerned a child aged seven by the time of the hearing in the Supreme Court who could not speak for herself. The present case concerns an adult aged 21 who (subject to the constraints) can and does.
  • Balancing all these considerations, I have come slowly and cautiously, but ultimately very firmly, to the conclusion that I should exercise the jurisdiction and should make such orders as I can to protect Amina. If citizenship means anything at all, it does include the right to seek help and protection and, weighing all those factors, I should not deny help and protection to Amina. To do nothing at all would, in my view, amount to a dereliction towards Amina and in effect just giving up on her.

 

What order?

 

  • The next and final question is what order I should actually make. There was much discussion during the hearing about my simply repeating an order in the terms of para.15, hoping that now that a full hearing has occurred the father would permit a private meeting to take place at the consulate. He has, however, persisted in his position that he will not do so unless the Foreign and Commonwealth Office give a prior written assurance that if Amina were to seek diplomatic protection or “sanctuary” in the consulate, the consulate would not give it to her, but would hand her over to the Saudi authorities of the Ministry of the Interior. I see little point or purpose in repeating a para.15 order. Its main purpose when made on 4 July was to enable instructions to be taken from Amina so that a detailed up to date statement could be prepared for her, and an effective fact finding hearing could take place. That having been thwarted by the father, I am not now willing to set up another projected fact finding hearing in inevitably several months’ time. There has been far too much delay already in proceedings which ultimately concern liberty and which were commenced now almost eight months ago last December.
  • There has also, incidentally, been far too much expense. I was told by Mr. Setright that the costs and disbursements of Amina, all funded by English legal aid, are already of the order of £50,000. The litigation has not yet cost the father personally anything, since his costs and disbursements are apparently all being funded by or through the Saudi Arabian Embassy, although he may be required later to repay them.
  • In my view, I should, rather, move directly now to an order against the father personally that he must permit and facilitate the return of Amina, if she so wishes, to Wales or England and pay the air fare. He must at once make freely available to her both her British and her Saudi Arabian passports. She needs the former to enable her freely to enter Britain. She needs the latter to enable her freely to re-enter Saudi Arabia if later she wishes to return there for any purpose. I will specify the date by which Amina must be enabled to return as Sunday 11 September 2016. That allows about five and a half weeks for the father to reflect on this judgment and to make orderly arrangements. I myself will be sitting again here at the Royal Courts of Justice from Monday 12 September 2016, and very shortly after that date this case must be listed again before me. If Amina is, indeed, here, she must attend and I will decide what further orders, if any, should be made. If she is not here, I will similarly decide what further orders should be made or action taken.
  • As I require Amina personally to attend, that hearing will, in the first instance, be listed in private so she is not initially burdened by the presence of the media. However, at or before the conclusion of the hearing I will in some way (by judgment or by a statement) inform the public and any interested representatives of the media the gist of what has occurred between now and then. I wish to make crystal clear that, apart from requiring her attendance before me at that hearing, if she has indeed voluntarily returned to Wales and England, I do not make any order whatsoever against Amina herself. The purpose is not to order her to do anything at all. Rather, it is to create conditions in which she, as an adult of full capacity, can exercise and implement her own independent free will and freedom of choice. To that end, I will give further consideration with counsel after this judgment to what mechanism can now be established to enable her freely to state, if that be her own free decision and choice, that she does not now wish to avail herself of the opportunity provided by my decision and this order to return to Wales or England.
  • I conclude this judgment by expressing my sincere thanks to Mr. Setright QC and his junior counsel Mr. Michael Gration, and to Mr. Scott-Manderson QC for their sustained and distinguished written and oral arguments in this case; and to the solicitors on both sides who instruct them.

 

 

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