Tag Archives: legal aid

“Unnourished by sense.”

Posted on March 22, 2019 by suesspiciousminds

It is always nice to see a judgment from Sir James Munby, and this one has everything, including the title above, which I intend to steal and deploy at every available opportunity.

(The fact that the phrase was originally coined by an American Judge whose given name was “Frankfurter” makes me even fonder of it, as does the fact that the case it was taken from is one where the US Court ruled that the historical rule that a husband and wife could not conspire to commit a criminal act was nonsense based on medieval views of women being the property of their husband United States v Dege 1960 http://www.worldlii.org/us/cases/federal/USSC/1960/136.html

Such an immunity to husband and wife as a pair of conspirators would have to attribute to Congress one of two assumptions: either that responsibility of husband and wife for joint participation in a criminal enterprise would make for marital disharmony, or that a wife must be presumed to act under the coercive influence of her husband and, therefore, cannot be a willing participant. The former assumption is unnourished by sense; the latter implies a view of American womanhood offensive to the ethos of our society. )

What is the case about?

In a nutshell, some people got divorced on the grounds of 2 years separation when they hadn’t been separated for 2 years (in one of the cases, they’d only been married for 22 months, so couldn’t possibly have been separated for 2 years). The Court wrongly granted the divorces. The problem got flagged up by Court software after the event [apparently showing that 11 divorces were made in 2016 that shouldn’t have been granted], the Court fudged the mistake by making orders it didn’t have power to make. The people then remarried, making them inadvertently bigamists, Sir James Munby learned of the Court software throwing up divorces that had been wrongly made and looked into it, the Legal Aid Agency said (I’m paraphrasing) “Just because the State cocked up your divorce, and now says you’re not divorced, or might not be, and you might be a bigamist or might not be, and your new husband might be deported by the immigration authorities if your second marriage isn’t lawful, and you need to be in a Court hearing to argue about that involving really complex case law going back to 1936, the case law being so complicated that it made a former President of the Family Division (but not Sir James Munby) say with exasperation “I find it impossible to discover any clear and logical principle from the decided cases.” , well all of that doesn’t mean that you get legal aid to help put this right. You are £37.17 a month over the limit for legal aid. Do it yourself. Good luck, pal. ”

THAT is what caused Sir James Munby to say

I do not criticise the Legal Aid Agency which was, no doubt, operating within the confines of a system imposed on it by others. But the idea that someone with an available net monthly income of £625.87 (the amount if one takes the actual rather than the notional amount of her rent: £1,580.87 – (1,500 – 545) = £625.87) and, for all practical purposes, no capital has the means to fund litigation of this kind is, to adopt a phrase used by Frankfurter J in United States v Dege (1960) 364 US 51, page 53, “unnourished by sense.” Nor is it immediately obvious why someone whose disposable income is so low should be denied legal aid because their aggregate income exceeds some artificial limit, let alone when it does so by a sum as trivial as £37.17. After all, P, like all of us, has to live on what is left after payment of PAYE and NI (deducted, of course, at source) and the costs of housing.

What ought also to be obvious to anyone with an ounce of common sense and understanding of forensic realities is that no lay person in the position of either P, or for that matter M, could possibly be expected to argue a case of this legal complexity, and this even if English was their native tongue.

What I was faced with here was the profoundly disturbing fact that P does not qualify for legal aid but manifestly lacks the financial resources to pay for legal representation in circumstances where, to speak plainly, it was unthinkable that she should have to face the Queen’s Proctor’s application without proper representation. The State has simply washed its hands of the problem, leaving the solution to the problem which the State itself has created to the goodwill, the charity, of the legal profession. For what brought this matter to court was, to repeat, failures, mistakes, by the State, by the court system, and, specifically by judges. Moreover, the application has been mounted by an officer of the State, the Queen’s Proctor. Yet the State has declined all responsibility for ensuring that P is able to participate effectively in the proceedings. I make as clear as possible that in saying this I intend not the slightest criticism of the Queen’s Proctor, who has acted throughout with complete propriety and, moreover, with conspicuous concern for the predicament in which P and M find themselves. Indeed, the Queen’s Proctor, having discussed the point with the court, very properly took the highly unusual step of writing to Messrs Duncan Lewis a letter to assist with P’s application for legal aid in this case. Yet the situation is, it might be thought, both unprincipled and unconscionable. Why should the State leave it to private individuals to ensure that hapless individuals like P and M, victims of the State’s failings, are able to obtain justice? Or is society in the twenty-first century content with the thought, excoriated well over a century ago by Matthew LJ, that justice, like the Ritz, is open to all? It is deeply wrong and potentially most unfair that legal representation in a case like this, where it is a vital necessity, is available only if the lawyers, as here, agree to work for nothing.

And

121.The ultimate safeguard for someone faced with the might of the State remains today, as traditionally, the fearless advocate bringing to bear in the sole interests of the lay client all the advocate’s skill, experience, expertise, dedication, tenacity and commitment. So the role of specialist family counsel, and of the specialist family solicitors who instruct them, is vital in ensuring that justice is done and that so far as possible miscarriages of justice are prevented. May there never be wanting an adequate supply of skilled and determined lawyers, barristers and solicitors, willing and able to undertake this vitally important work. There can be no higher call on the honour of the Bar than when one of its members is asked to act on behalf of a client facing the might of the State. The Bar, I am sure, will never fail in its obligation to stand between Crown and subject. And the same of course goes for the solicitors’ profession. But there is something profoundly distasteful when society, when Government, relies upon this as an excuse for doing nothing, trusting to the professions to do the right thing which the State is so conspicuously unwilling to do or to provide for.

The lawyers in this case worked for free to represent people caught up in a life-altering piece of litigation because the State cocked up.

I also like that the Daily Telegraph headlined this story in their indupitable way

126.During the hearing on 28 February 2019, I mentioned the fact that I had discovered certain problems with an early version of the software. This, I should emphasise, was well before it was first made available to the public. The fact that I, as an elderly judge, had been able to identify such gremlins seemed to surprise the media: a report of the hearing in the Daily Telegraph of 1 March 2019 carried the headline “Online divorce service glitch revealed by senior judge, 70“, faithfully reflecting the story beneath.

You may be thinking at this point that blaming it on software is easy but decree nisi and decree absolute are actually made by Judges and surely even busy Judges could look at a marriage that was 22 months ago and see that it couldn’t possibly be a 2 year separation case. You are right. Ultimately the mistakes were made by Judges. (There were 11 such cases in 2016, this is a sample one)

The parties were married in London on 19 September 2011. In June 2013, the husband, M, acting in person, submitted a divorce petition dated 14 June 2013 to the Willesden County Court. It was returned to M on three occasions before the Court was prepared to accept it: first, on 18 June 2013 because the front page needed to be completed and because of deficiencies in Parts 2 and 4; then on 27 June 2013 because the deficiency in Part 2 had still not been remedied; and finally on 3 July 2013 because with effect from 1 July 2013 the issue fee had increased from £340 to £410. It is to be noted that through all this to-ing and fro-ing no-one in the court office had spotted the fundamental problem with the petition. After these delays, the petition was issued on 26 July 2013.

In Part 3, “Jurisdiction”, M asserted jurisdiction in accordance with the Council Regulation, stating that he and his wife, P, were both habitually resident in England and Wales. Part 5, “The fact(s)”, follows the structure of section 1 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 and requires the petitioner to mark the relevant boxes. M put a cross in two boxes, one against the rubric “I apply for a divorce on the ground that the marriage had broken down irretrievably”, the other against the rubric “The parties to the marriage/civil partnership have lived apart for a continuous period of at least two years immediately preceding the presentation of the petition and the Respondent consents to a decree/order being granted.” In Part 6, “Statement of case”, M wrote: “The respondent has refused to share the same household as the petitioner since the marriage took place on the 19^th September 2011.”

The problem which has given rise to the present proceedings is immediately apparent: given that the marriage had taken place on 19 September 2011, the period of two years referred to in section 1(2)(d) of the 1973 Act had not elapsed by the date the petition was issued on 26 July 2013. Unhappily, even at this stage the problem was not identified by the staff at Willesden County Court, notwithstanding that the Automatic Event Record generated in the court office and dated 29 July 2013, accurately recorded under the heading Case Details that the Grounds for Divorce (sic) were “2yrs separation”, that the date of marriage was 19 September 2011 and that the date of issue was 26 July 2013.

In her acknowledgment of service dated 12 August 2013, P, in answer to question 1C (“Do you agree with the statement of the petitioner as to the grounds of jurisdiction set out in the petition? If not, please state the grounds on which you disagree with the statement of the petitioner.”), answered “I agree with the statement of the petitioner.” In answer to question 4 she stated that she did not intend to defend the case and in answer to question 5 that she consented to a decree being granted. M’s “Statement in support of divorce … – 2 years, consent” was dated 27 September 2013.

On 22 October 2013 the file was put before Deputy District Judge Quin. The Deputy District Judge completed the Form D30 (“Consideration of applications for Decree Nisi / Conditional order under FPR 7.20”), by ticking the relevant boxes and making the appropriate deletions so as to say “I certify that the Petitioner is entitled to a decree of divorce on the following ground(s): 2 years separation by consent.”

On 21 November 2013, decree nisi was pronounced by District Judge Steel, the order stating, so far as material for present purposes: “The Judge held that the petitioner and respondent have lived apart for a continuous period of at least two years immediately preceding the presentation of the petition, and that the respondent consents to a decree being granted …” The decree was made absolute on 24 February 2014.

On 26 January 2015, M remarried in Brazil, his new wife being a Brazilian national.

On 12 October 2016, a member of the HMCTS Family Improvement Team at HMCTS headquarters emailed the delivery manager at what was now the Family Court at Willesden seeking “urgent information from a divorce file where the petition should not have been issued.” The delivery manager referred the matter to District Judge Middleton-Roy the same day, with this note:

“It would appear that this petition was issued in error. It was issued under 2 yrs with consent but the parties were only married for 22 months. Directions/ comments please. DA has already been issued 24/2/14.”

District Judge Middleton-Roy responded the same day. He ticked the “No action necessary” box on the referral form and commented: “I am not clear why the issue has arisen now – neither party appears to be applying to set aside the DA.”

The next morning, 13 October 2016, the delivery manager emailed the HMCTS Family Improvement Team to report District Judge Middleton-Roy’s comment. The response from the Family Improvement Team was an email to the delivery manager the same morning:

“The issue has been raised as our data checking process returns has picked this case up as a case that should not have been issued, thereby possibly making the DA invalid. Can this be re-referred down to a judge for consideration of directions to be given in view of this …”

The delivery manager put the file back before District Judge Middleton-Roy the same day. On 17 October 2016 he directed that the matter be listed for directions with a time estimate of 30 minutes and instructed the court staff write to both parties as follows:

“The Judge has considered that papers and directs that I write to you as follows: An error has been identified in the process giving rise to the Decree Absolute (final divorce) in these proceedings in 2014. The matter has been listed for a directions hearing when the court will identify what steps are necessary to restore the issue.”

Letters in those terms were sent to both parties on 19 October 2016, enclosing notices, dated 17 October 2016, listing the directions hearing for 18 January 2017.

The hearing on 18 January 2017 took place before District Judge Middleton-Roy. M was present in person; P did not attend the hearing. The order made by District Judge Middleton-Roy “RECORDED” certain matters, including that “This hearing was listed of the Court’s own motion and not on the application of either party”; that “The Court was informed that subsequent to the granting of the Decree Absolute in this action, the Petitioner has re-married”; that “The Court determined that the original petition … proceeded erroneously by not relying upon the correct facts in support, namely two years separation, when the parties had not been separated for a full period of two years at the time of presenting the petition”; that “The Court determined that the Petitioner shall be permitted to amend the petition, to rely upon the fact of the Respondent’s behaviour”; and that “The court dispensed with the need for a formal written application to amend the petition and dispensed with the need for notice to be served upon the Respondent, the petition having proceeded on an undefended basis and no answer having been filed.” The order also “RECORDED” that:

“The Court determined, declared and certified that the Petitioner is entitled to a decree and that the Decree Nisi dated 21.11.13 and Decree Absolute pronounced in public on 24.02.14 remain valid”

and that:

“The Court declared that nothing in the terms of this Order has the effect of invalidating the Petitioner’s subsequent marriage.”

The order further ordered (“It is ordered that”) that:

“2.1 Permission to the Petitioner to amend the petition dated 14.06.2013 in the form of the amendment dated 18.02.2017.

2.2 Filing and service of an application to amend the petition is dispensed with.

2.3 The Decree Absolute pronounced on 24.04.2014 remains valid.”

The court file contains a copy of the petition marked at the top of the first page, in what appears to be District Judge Middleton-Roy’s handwriting, “AMENDED” and at the foot of the final page “18.01.2017”, again in what appears to be his handwriting, although it appears that M also re-signed the petition. In Part 5 the cross against the rubric “The parties to the marriage/civil partnership have lived apart for a continuous period of at least two years immediately preceding the presentation of the petition and the Respondent consents to a decree/order being granted” has been deleted and, in its place, a cross inserted against the rubric, which was underlined, “The Respondent has behaved in such a way that the Petitioner cannot reasonably be expected to live with the Respondent.”

On 24 March 2017, in Brazil, P married a Brazilian national.

The legal argument (and it is complex) hinged on whether the decree absolutes, which were made on an incorrect premise (that the parties had been separated for 2 years when it was apparent on the face of the documents that they had not been) were VOID – which means the divorce didn’t happen and the subsequent remarriages of both parties were unlawful or VOIDABLE meaning that a Court could decide whether to void them or whether to leave the divorces legally intact.

The conclusion (and if you want to see how Sir James Munby got there good luck to you, its at paragraphs 45-103 inclusive) is

40.At the end of the hearing I reserved judgment. On 4 March 2019 I informed the parties of my decision: that the decrees are VOIDABLE, not void; that the decrees will NOT be set aside; and that the decree absolute accordingly remains valid and in force. I now (22 March 2019) hand down judgment.

And reasoning

At the end of this long analysis of the jurisprudence, I have come to the clear conclusion that the consequence of what happened in this case is that the decrees are voidable, not void.

I can set out my reasoning as follows, taking the points in no particular order:

i) First, there is no previous case directly in point. The present case turns on statutory provisions linguistically and analytically different from those in play both in Butler v Butler, The Queen’s Proctor Intervening [1990] 1 FLR 114, and in Manchanda v Manchanda [1995] 2 FLR 590.
ii) Secondly, I should lean against holding the decrees void unless driven to that conclusion by the language and context of the relevant statute, here section 1(2) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973.

iii) Thirdly, and applying the approach articulated by Sir Jocelyn Simon P in F v F [1971] P 1, I need to ask myself whether Parliament can really have intended that the consequence here should be that the decrees are nullities and void. My answer is that Parliament surely cannot have intended the injustice which will inevitably flow, not just to M and P but also to their new spouses, if the decrees are void.

iv) Fourthly, and as I have already explained, the fact that there has been non-compliance with the statute is not determinative.
v) Fifthly, although recognising that the statutory context is different, the fact is that the structure of section 1(2) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 – “the court … shall not … unless the petitioner satisfies the court” – is indistinguishable from that in both section 33(1) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1965 and section 6 of the Divorce Reform Act 1969 (now section 10 of the 1973 Act) – “the court shall not … unless it is satisfied” – and the case-law is all at one that in those cases the consequence of non-compliance is not that the decree is void but rather that it is voidable.
vi) Sixthly, both the statutory context and the structure and language of section 1(2) of the 1973 Act are markedly different from the context, structure and language of section 9(2).

vii) Seventhly, it is quite clear that there was here no non-compliance with section 3 of the 1973 Act, so that, in contrast to the situation in Butler v Butler, The Queen’s Proctor Intervening [1990] 1 FLR 114, the court here did have jurisdiction to entertain the petition.

viii) Eighthly, the petition correctly pleaded the only relevant ground, namely that “the marriage has broken down irretrievably”.

ix) Ninthly, the error in correctly identifying the relevant fact did not prevent the court entertaining the petitioner’s subsequent application for a decree: in Leggatt LJ’s sense of the word, District Judge Steel had jurisdiction to hear the petitioner’s application for a decree nisi. The District Judge’s error was, to adopt Leggatt LJ’s words, an inadvertent failure to observe a statutory provision – section 1(2) of the 1973 Act – against the exercise of it.
x) Tenthly, there was in the present case another fact in existence at the date of the petition which if properly pleaded – by an amendment of the petition – would undoubtedly have justified the court granting a decree nisi and thereafter making the decree absolute.
xi) Finally, although this is not, I emphasise, a necessary pre-requisite to my conclusion, in the present case the evidence to establish that fact was actually set out in Part 6 of the petition. So, in this particular case, the defect in the petition came down to this: that the cross had been put in the wrong box in Part 5 – a defect simply curably by putting the cross in the correct box. It is sometimes said that Roger Casement was hanged by a comma, but, whatever the truth of that, one has to ask what conceivable principle of justice or public policy could possibly be served by treating as nullities decrees where the parties were the innocent victims of failure by the court itself, and where their subsequent marriages, entered into in complete good faith and in reliance upon the court’s own orders, would thereby be treated as bigamous, when the entire problem derives from the fact that a cross was placed in the wrong box. We are no longer in the days of Parke B. Surely the modern judicial conscience would revolt if compelled to come to such a conclusion.

(So actually, and Sir James Munby says this, DJ Middleton-Roy was right in the hot-fix that he applied to the situation, although there was quite a bit of judicial reasoning to get to that point. In old Math teacher language, DJ Middleton-Roy had the right answer, but hadn’t shown his working.)

I wasn’t familiar with the Roger Casement was hanged by a comma history, so there’s a link here, and it is a worthwhile side-track (one of the things I like most about Sir James Munby is that his judgments expand your mind)

https://ipdraughts.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/hanged-on-a-comma-drafting-can-be-a-matter-of-life-and-death/

I think the portions of the judgment dealing with the human realities are also interesting and bring the case to life

41.The focus of the hearing was, inevitably, on the difficult questions of law to which I must come in due course. But it must never be forgotten that, at the end of the day, this application affects four human beings – P, M and their new spouses – in a matter which is of transcendental importance to all of them. P, in her statement, puts the point in understandably emotive and powerful language:

“I am an innocent party to these proceedings … My current husband and I married in Brazil in good faith after the amended petition … on 24/03/17 before God and our families … the idea that I have committed bigamy is convulsing and my mental health is now being affected … if it indeed the case that my former husband and I is not divorced that means I am a bigamist [Bigamy is illegal in Brazil] irrespective if it was a legal oversight, and I can be arrested, detained and prosecuted if I try to annul the divorce.”

She then added this very important point:

“In addition as my husband is a Brazilian national who travels to the UK as my spouse will no longer be able to enter the UK as he will no longer be my spouse and the Home Office don’t allow partners visitation. This is going to affect my marriage severely.”

42.Ms Bazley and Ms Dunseath make similar points in their skeleton argument:

“In her statement [P] raises particular concerns about the fact that the setting aside of the decrees would seem to mean, amongst other things, that she had entered into a second marriage whilst already married – coming within the definition of the offence of bigamy, contrary to s.57 Offences Against the Person Act 1861 (and, it appears, a contravention of Article 1521(VI) of the Brazilian Civil Code – acting unlawfully by remarrying whilst still being married).

[Her] concerns are both legal, she may have committed an offence, and moral/spiritual, in that she feels deeply disturbed by potentially having committed that offence. Further, it is enormously distressing to her to contemplate that her marriage may be invalidated, despite having taken place in good faith, in a ceremony witnessed by family and friends.

The setting aside of the decrees would cause [her] emotional, psychological, and financial harm, and may disturb her new relationship.”

43.The potential immigration problems in this kind of situation are all too real, as the reaction of the Home Office to the predicament in which the parties in Solovyev v Solovyeva found themselves, so clearly illustrates: see Solovyev v Solovyeva [2014] EWFC 1546, [2015] 1 FLR 734, para 4 and Solovyev v Solovyeva [2014] EWFC 20, para 7. The fact that the official policy of the “hostile environment” has recently been replaced with the semantically less challenging policy of the “compliant environment” is, one suspects, of little comfort to bewildered people like P and M.

44.To that I should add what may be obvious from what I have already said but nonetheless needs to be stated plainly and without equivocation: both M and P are the wholly innocent victims of serious mistakes by the court, mistakes not merely by court staff but, more importantly, by judges – Deputy District Judge Quin and District Judge Steel. True it is, that the original mistake was by M, when he made the mistake of marking the wrong box in Part 5 of the petition, and that if he had not made that mistake there would never have been any problem. But that is wholly beside the point. If M’s mistake was the causa sine qua non – the ‘but for’ cause of what happened –, the causa causans – the real, primary, cause was the errors of the court, of the judges

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Posted in case law and tagged 2019 EWFC 14, divorce, legal aid, m v p 2019, pro bono, void marriage, voidable marriage. Bookmark the permalink.

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

https://suesspiciousminds.com/2016/03/11/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

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.

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)
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.

5 Comments

Posted in case law, costs, section 20 and tagged 2016 EWHC 2779 (fam), compensation being swallowed up by costs, costs, human rights act, keehan j, legal aid, P v A Local Authority 2016, statutory charge. Bookmark the permalink.

The ‘evidence of domestic violence within 2 years’ Regulation found unlawful

Posted on February 19, 2016 by suesspiciousminds

I am struggling to think of a piece of legislation that has had as many successful challenges to the legality of Regulations issued under it as the much-beloved LASPO (Legal Aid, Sentencing and Prosecution of Offencers Act 2012)

The particular Regulations here are Regulation 33 of the Civil Legal Aid (Procedure) Regulations 2012

LASPO sets out that being a victim of domestic violence can be a reason for the provision of free legal representation. The sense of this is that where someone has been the victim of domestic violence, it would be abusive and damaging for the State to make them face the perpetrator in Court without a lawyer to represent them. [Note that this provision still only applies within financial limits – below a specified income and capital the State should pay for that, above that and the individual would have to pay for it themselves, regardless of whether the legal representation is actually genuinely affordable on that income]

There is, of course, an entirely separate debate about whether someone who is accused of perpetrating domestic violence should be entitled to free legal representation to defend the allegations (at least until the Court has determined the truth of the allegations), but that’s beyond the scope of this case. [For my part, I think that LASPO should have provided for that, but it doesn’t]

Regulation 33 sets out that in order to show that you are a victim of domestic violence, you need some documentary evidence of that to get legal aid, and that the evidence must be within the last 24 months.

This 24 month rule was challenged. [Note that although the application was brought by a group lobbying for women’s rights, men of course can also be the victims of domestic violence and abuse, and this case applies to men as well]

Rights of Women, R (on the application of) v The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice [2016] EWCA Civ 91

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2016/91.html

Whilst the judgment is fairly long and involves some rather nuanced discussions about Padfield unfairness versus Wednesbury unreasonableness, the case can be condensed into these short passages

Ms Lieven submitted that the evidence shows (as practitioners in the Family Division know from their own experience) that there are many situations in which victims of domestic violence find themselves at the receiving end of legal proceedings not merely more than 24 months after incidents of domestic violence have occurred but more than 24 months after it is practical to obtain the kind of verification required by regulation 33. Examples of such cases are:-

i) the perpetrator may have been in prison; once he (it is almost always he) is released, he may initiate proceedings for child contact or divorce and financial settlement; regulation 33(2)(a) can only be relied on if the conviction preceding the prison sentence is a relevant conviction for a domestic violence offence and if it is unspent; if the sentence is a fine or a community order, the conviction will be spent after only 12 months from the date of conviction or from the last day the order is to have effect;ii) there may have been a non-molestation order (or other form of injunction) which has kept the parties apart for 2 years but has expired before legal proceedings are begun;

iii) a similar period of separation may have occurred for other reasons such as the receipt of a police caution or other police involvement; criminal proceedings may have been instituted which do not result in a conviction; such non-convictions occur for many reasons other than that the alleged perpetrator is innocent;

iv) there is no time limit for the initiation of proceedings for child contact; a refusal of child contact does not prevent a re-initiation of proceedings which can therefore be served again on the victim of domestic abuse after the expiry of the two year period. Additionally, the court can direct, pursuant to section 91(14) of the Children Act 1989, that no such proceedings shall be begun without permission of the court for a period until the expiry of the two year period in which domestic abuse could be verified in accordance with the Regulations; if the Court also directs that any application for permission is not to be served on the respondent, a victim of domestic abuse may receive no notice of prospective proceedings within the relevant period in which she may otherwise take steps to obtain verification;

v) The main priority of any victim of domestic violence will be to make immediate arrangements for her personal safety and that of her children; this may take a considerable time particularly if the abuse was prolonged or the marriage was originally a forced one; any proceedings sought to be brought by the victim for divorce or financial relief may well be more than 24 months after any practical ability to obtain verification has passed;

vi) although the definition of domestic violence extends beyond physical abuse to psychological or emotional abuse, the verifications required by regulation 33 are much more easily satisfied where there has been physical abuse than where there has been psychological or emotional abuse. This means that even though signs of psychological or emotional abuse may persist longer than sign of physical abuse, there is considerable difficulty for the victim in obtaining the necessary verification after any lapse of time; and

vii) victims of financial abuse will not be able to obtain any of the verifications required by regulation 33 at all. (The only answer Mr Sheldon could give to this last point was the inadequate one that victims of financial abuse could always be expected to show evidence of psychological abuse).
This is a formidable catalogue of areas of domestic violence not reached by a statute whose purpose is to reach just such cases. But does it go so far as to show that the 24 month requirement has no rational connection with the statutory purpose?
In my judgment it does. There is, as Ms Lieven submits, no obvious correlation between the passage of such a comparatively short period of time as 24 months and the harm to the victim of domestic violence disappearing or even significantly diminishing. No doubt the 24 month requirement serves the purposes of the statute as the Divisional Court considered them to be but as I have said those purposes are not the only purposes of the statute. Once it is accepted that part of the statutory purpose is to ensure that legal aid is available to (at any rate the great majority of) sufferers from domestic violence, one has to ask why it is that so many of them are excluded by virtue of the 24 month rule. Mr Parsons’ assertion that “the time limit provides a test of the on-going relevance of the abuse” does not justify the many excluded instances or the lack of any opportunity for victims of domestic violence to explain why it would be unjust to apply the time limit to their particular case. It operates in a completely arbitrary manner

And then

I would therefore allow this appeal and, subject to any further argument about the detail of the form of order, in principle declare that regulation 33 is invalid insofar as it

a) requires verifications of domestic violence to be given within a 24 month period before any application for legal aid; and

b) does not cater for victims of domestic violence who have suffered from financial abuse.

A cynical person might say about LASPO that Parliament when considering this Act were rightly very troubled by the original legislation and the lack of protection for certain vulnerable groups, which was why some safeguards were inserted into the final version of the Act, and that the Legal Aid Agency and Ministry of Justice have systematically attempted to erode those safeguards by Regulations (which have been successfully challenged) and guidance on implementation (which has also been successfully challenged).

In effect, Parliament agreed to trade in the car that they owned for a greatly inferior but still safe model to save cash, and agreed to let the Minister have a copy of the car keys, in case he or she needed to tune up the car or valet the inside at any time (the power to make Regulations).

Then the Minister snuck off in the night, used the keys and removed the brakes, seatbelts, speedometer, and airbags that would make the inferior car still safe to drive.

The Courts have ordered these safety measures to be reinstalled. But so far, each individual bit of ministerial pilfering has had to be dealt with one at a time. I hope that MPs are keeping up to date with the bad-faith approach to LASPO and will approach any future legislation with a much more cynical eye on giving Ministers the car keys in the future.

5 Comments

Posted in case law, costs and tagged 2016 EWCA Civ 91, article 6, domestic violence, free legal representation, laspo, legal aid, proof of domestic violence, Rights of Women v Lord Chancellor 2016. Bookmark the permalink.

Re-e-wind, when the crowd say Bo Selecta!

Posted on August 7, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

(I had to go back and google to make sure I hadn’t used this before as a title – I had not, but I had hankered after it here

https://suesspiciousminds.com/2013/11/25/rearrange-these-three-letters-f-w-t/ )

This case is Re M, not Re E, but is a case where the Court made a decision to re-e-wind the care proceedings.

Re M (a child) 2015

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/HCJ/2015/71.html

The case was decided by the President of the Family Division, because it related to a failure of the Legal Aid Agency to provide public funding for the mother to be represented.

Here is the nub of it

M was born in December 2011. A skeletal survey in July 2012 revealed a fracture of her arm. The local authority commenced care proceedings the same month (DO12C00164). A finding of fact hearing took place in the County Court before His Honour Judge Bond in December 2012. His judgment is dated 3 January 2013. He found that the fracture was inflicted “by either the mother or the father, the other parent failing to protect M” but that “it is not possible to determine which of the two parents was responsible.” The care proceedings concluded on 15 November 2013 when Judge Bond made a 12 month supervision order and a special guardianship order in favour of one of the mother’s relatives.
On 11 July 2014 the mother made an application to the Family Court (BH14C00470) seeking “discharge of Supervision Order and Special Guardianship Order.” That concealed the true nature of the application. As set out in a skeleton argument dated 23 February 2015 prepared by her counsel, Ms Alison Grief QC, what the mother was seeking was a re-hearing of the finding of fact hearing because of what was said to be a breach of Article 6. Her case was that: i) New evidence demonstrated the full extent of the mother’s disability, rendering her a vulnerable adult.
ii) The fact finding hearing was conducted without this vital information.

iii) The integrity of the fact finding hearing was so significantly compromised as to amount to a breach of Article 6, thus necessitating a re-consideration.
The application came before Judge Bond on 24 February 2015. It was opposed by the local authority. His judgment is dated 26 February 2015. He explained that he was concerned only with Stage 1 of the three-stage process explained in Re ZZ and others [2014] EWFC 9 . He expressed his conclusion in this way:

“Article 6 provides an absolute right to a fair trial. That right cannot be diluted. The findings that the court made as to the mother’s reliability as a witness were central to the finding as to her possible role as a perpetrator of M’s injuries. In the light of the information which is now available it cannot now be said that the mother did receive a fair trial in December 2012.

I am therefore satisfied that she has provided solid grounds which satisfy Stage 1 of the Test.

I therefore give the mother leave to re-open the fact find.”

Judge Bond added that his decision “does not include any indication of the ultimate result of a re-hearing.”
Given the way in which Judge Bond expressed himself and, importantly, the basis upon which he decided to re-open matters – the fact that, as he found, the mother had not had a fair trial – it is quite clear that the effect of his judgment is, as it were, to rewind the care proceedings, by which I mean the original care proceedings, DO12C00164, back to the point at which the finding of fact hearing was taking place in December 2012. In other words, this is not a case in which the application to set aside the supervision order and the special guardianship order is founded on some subsequent change of circumstance. It is founded on the fact – now established to the satisfaction of the original trial judge – that the mother was denied a fair trial of the original proceedings. In other words, the matter now before Judge Bond is not application BH14C00470; it is the substantive proceedings in DO12C00164.

The Legal Aid Agency had treated mother’s application for public funding as being an application to discharge the SGO, which would not get legal aid, rather than an application to be represented in care proceedings, which would.

It rather irks me that nobody took the simple solution here, which is – the final orders made in November 2013 are discharged (on the basis that the hearing was not a fair trial), and declare that the original application for care proceedings issued in 2012 is now a live application. The Court could then go on to make either no order (if there is agreement that the child stay with grandparents whilst the matter is being determined) or an ICO (if there is no such agreement).

Of course, that is going to absolutely BATTER the Court statistics for that particular Court, since the care proceedings when they finally finish will have taken not 26 weeks, but something more like 150 weeks.

So the alternative is:-

Discharge the existing orders
Direct that the LA prepare a section 37 report (which in effect will be their initial statement in fresh care proceedings)
Make an ICO under the section 37 powers
LA apply for fresh care proceedings, on the basis that if they do not, the child will return to mother’s care

Either of those solutions mean that the substantive litigation will be done under care proceedings, and thus the legal aid is mandatory non-means, non-merits for the mother.

But anyway, given that the case was before the President, what could be done instead is the muscle-flexing don’t mess with the President approach

It may be that the Legal Aid Agency was given inadequate information as to the nature of the proceedings now before Judge Bond, but in my judgment, what is now before Judge Bond – which, to repeat, is the original care proceedings DO12C00164 – is plainly a “special Children Act 1989 case” in relation to which the mother is entitled to legal aid in accordance with paragraph 2 of the Regulations.
There is, therefore, no need for me to consider whether the mother is entitled to look to any other source of funding. It was common ground before me that the effect of the recent decision of the Court of Appeal in Re K and H (Children) [2015] EWCA Civ 543 , is to preclude the making of any order against Her Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service. Had the need arisen, Mr Tughan would have pressed for an order again the local authority, relying for this purpose on what I said in Re D (A Child) [2014] EWFC 39 , para 35. That, unsurprisingly, is an order that Mr Nother made clear his clients would resist.
I trust that the Legal Aid Agency will now be able to move with appropriate speed to ensure that the mother has legal aid for the next and subsequent hearings before Judge Bond.
I make the following order:

“Upon reading the judgment of His Honour Judge Bond dated 26 February 2015 and the orders subsequently made by Judge Bond

It is declared that (a) the effect of that judgment is to re-open the proceedings DO12C00164 under section 31 of the Children Act 1989 (b) future hearings before Judge Bond will be of the proceedings DO12C00164 and (c) the ongoing proceedings before Judge Bond are accordingly a “special Children Act 1989 case” within the meaning of paragraph 2 of The Civil Legal Aid (Merits Criteria) Regulations 2013, SI 2013/104.”

It is not at all clear to me how everyone in the original set of proceedings missed mother’s learning difficulties, thus leading to an unfair trial, but it happened. Perhaps the State shouldn’t now compound that injustice by failing to give her the free legal advice and representation that she’s entitled to.

6 Comments

Posted in case law, costs, fact finding and tagged learning difficulties, legal aid, president of the family division, public funding, re m a child 2015, sir james munby, the president. Bookmark the permalink.

IS v Director of Legal Services 2015

Posted on July 16, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

Many other people will be writing about this case, but I’ll just give the bit for the family lawyers and Court of Protection lawyers (since it touches on capacity cases). Really important for the battles that have been fought since LASPO to say that it is being interpreted by the Legal Aid Agency in a way that, as Mostyn J put it

“sacrifices individual justice on the altar of public debt”

[which is approvingly cited in the case. Hell yeah]

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2015/1965.html

This is of course, the case about whether the Legal Aid Agency were properly using their discretion on granting public funding for cases where to represent yourself would put you in a position where your human rights would be breached, i.e section 10 LASPO. The LAA lost. They intend to appeal.

The really important bit for family law cases is paragraph 40

It is difficult to imagine a family case, particularly when there are contested issues about children, in which there would not be an interference with the Article 8 rights of either parent or the children themselves. Thus unless the party seeking legal aid could albeit unrepresented present his or her case effectively and without obvious unfairness, a grant of legal aid would be required. That does not mean that every case will require it: some may be sufficiently simple for the unrepresented party to deal with. Obviously if there is a lack of capacity even such cases may require legal aid. That issue I will have to consider in further detail later. But I am bound to say that I believe that only in rare cases, subject to means and merits if properly applied, should legal aid be denied in such cases. As it is now applied, the scheme is clearly wholly deficient in that it does not enable the family courts to be satisfied that they can do justice and give a fair hearing to an unrepresented party. While the problem may perhaps be less acute in other civil cases, I have no doubt that the difficulties I have referred to in family cases apply.

You can’t really have a much clearer message than that to say that the low rate of s10 LASPO public funding applications being granted, and the tests and guidance being applied by the LAA are wrong. Scandalously wrong.

Paragraph 80 also good – that the process of making an application is made unnecessarily difficult, and this, combined with the poor success rate has had the obvious effect of discouraging such applications from being made.

The main problem lies in the forms which are prescribed. They are far too complicated and are not at all helpful to lay persons. Providers have difficulties with them and the small level of grant has unquestionably, on the evidence which has not shown to be erroneous, led to the unwillingness of providers to take on clients who need to apply for ECF. The scheme is not properly providing the safety net which s.10 is supposed to provide. It is to be noted that it was anticipated that some 5,000 to 7,000 applications would be made in a year. The actual rate was a fraction of that. The defendants say that the figures they relied on were only estimates for planning purposes. In a letter of 20 August 2013 the MoJ stated that the figures were based on the number of grants estimated in the LASPO consultation exercise, namely 3,700. It is significant that the scheme has not produced anything like that number of grants, let alone applications. Furthermore, as the OS has indicated and a number of applications dealt with in the statements confirm, the hurdle erected for those who lack capacity is far too high. Those who are unable to pay for legal assistance are suffering in a way that Parliament cannot have intended.

And final flurry of killer blows

As will become apparent, I think that there must be changes to the scheme. The ECF application forms are far too complex for applicants in person. Separate forms should be provided. Indeed, overall the test set out in R(G) can be set out in the form and applicants or providers can then be required to give full details of the need for legal assistance by producing all existing material relevant to the application. As I indicated, what is put on the website can surely be put on a form. Consideration must be given to provision of Legal Help to enable providers to do work to see whether a client has a case which should be granted legal assistance because it qualifies within s.10 of the Act. No doubt the LAA will be entitled to decide whether any such application is reasonable since a provider must satisfy himself that there is a possible need for legal assistance on the basis of preliminary information given by the client and any relevant documents provided. Legal Help does not require a prospect of success test.
The rigidity of the merits test and the manner in which it is applied are in my judgment wholly unsatisfactory. They are not reasonable.
As will be clear, I am satisfied that the scheme as operated is not providing the safety net promised by Ministers and is not in accordance with s.10 in that it does not ensure that applicants’ human rights are not breached or are not likely to be breached. There is a further defect in the failure to have any right of appeal to a judicial body where an individual who lacks capacity will otherwise be unable to access a court or tribunal.

I don’t know about you, but I find something shameful about a Ministry of Justice being condemned by a Court for their part in devising a scheme that deprived individuals of justice in order to assauge public debt. And similarly something shameful that a body whose job it is to ensure that people have access to legal representation and advice going out of their way to prevent them getting it.

But then, these are bodies who in their response to the criticisms laid against them by the Justice Select Committee of Parliament with comments like “The Court did not rule that our policy was wholly unlawful” as though that was something that a Ministry of Justice should actually boast about.

Which reminds me rather of Steve Coogan’s pool attendant from the Day Today

7 Comments

Posted in case law, costs and tagged article 6, article 8, collins J, IS v Director of Legal Services 2015, laspo, legal aid, public funding, section 10 laspo. Bookmark the permalink.

No broad presumption in favour of a natural parent

Posted on April 27, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

The Court of Appeal in Re E-R (A child) 2015 had to deal with a very emotionally difficult case. [Don’t ask me why they call the case “Re E-R a child, but then use T as the child’s codename throughout. I have no idea why, it makes no sense]

T was five years and nine months old. She had lived with both parents until she was two and they separated, and from then on with her mother. Her mother sadly was diagnosed with cancer. The separation from the father had been very acriminious and the father had drifted out of T’s life.

The mother had made a will appointing a friend SJH as testamentary guardian, wanting SJH to care for T after her death. She and T moved in with SJH, who provided the mother and T with care. SJH made an application for a Special Guardianship Order whilst the mother was unwell but still alive.

His Honour Judge Vincent at the family court sitting at Truro on the 30^th January 2015. The judge’s order provided for a little girl, T, born 22 July 2009 (5 years 9 months) to move to live with TR (her father), and JB (his partner) and, thereafter, to have extensive contact with the Appellants with whom T and SH (her mother) were currently living. The judge dismissed the Appellant’s application for a special guardianship order in respect of T. The unusual and tragic feature of the case is that the variation of T’s current living arrangements provided for by the order were to take effect only upon the anticipated death of T’s mother.

The principal issue in the appeal turns on whether the judge had erred in law, having conducted his welfare analysis on the basis that there was “a broad natural parent presumption in existence under our law”. The Appellants appeal only the child arrangements order and do not appeal the judge’s refusal to make a special guardianship order.

Very sadly, the mother died before knowing the outcome of the appeal and thus without knowing whether her daughter would continue to live with SJH or whether she would be removed and placed with the father.

The Court note at the end, but I think it is very important, that everyone in this case struggled with the law (counsel in the first hearing and the Judge) and that father had not been able to be represented and had to represent himself in the Court of Appeal on extremely tricky points of law. A wholly unacceptable situation.

This was a difficult case. The court was faced with making a decision as to what arrangements could best be made to ameliorate the loss to T following the death of her mother. The judge listened conscientiously and carefully to extensive evidence and made findings about the parties involved. He was however denied critical assistance in two respects:
i) The relevant law was not brought to his attention; as a consequence his analysis was conducted on the basis that there was a presumption that T should live with her father. This was wrong in law and as already indicated, upon that basis alone, the appeal must be allowed.

ii) The judge might nevertheless have been better able to analyse the complicated issues which were thrown up had he had the benefit of something more than the somewhat one dimensional and superficial reports which were available to him.
The father has today once again been in a position of having to represent himself. This case is yet another example of the consequences of treating private law children proceedings, (in the absence of allegations of domestic violence), as being essentially straightforward matters in which parents are expected to “sort themselves out” and to make appropriate arrangements between themselves to enable their children to spend time with each of them without the necessity for, or entitlement to, legal representation.
The challenges presented by this case are obvious and have been set out above; the difficulties have been demonstrated at every professional level in the case, from the reports being wholly unsuited to the complexity of the case to counsel being unaware of the legal issues thrown up. As a consequence, the judge was left having to deal with the case without the help he needed. If the complexities of the case proved too much for these skilled professionals, what hope was there for the father in trying to represent himself?
Lord Justice McFarlane recorded, when granting permission that the issues raised in the appeal were principally a matter of law and that the father was to be given “every assistance” to obtain legal advice and representation. Unhappily the father appears before the court today once again unrepresented, although supported by JB. To his credit, the father has produced a skeleton argument for the court; his oral argument was courteous and moderate but inevitably did not touch upon the legal principle at the heart of the appeal. The father’s skeleton argument, far from addressing the point of law raised by the appeal, sadly serves only to underscore his animosity towards both the dying woman and the couple who have provided a home for her and for T during the period of time when he had been absent from their lives

The Court of Appeal did overturn the order and send it back for re-hearing. That does not automatically mean that the decision is that T will live with SJH, but just that in making the decision it is not a starting point or broad presumption that it would be better for a child to live with a birth parent. The Court of Appeal were at pains to point out that just as there’s no starting point or broad presumption that natural parent should prevail, nor was there one that the status quo should prevail.

The Law
In Re G 2006 UKHL 43 ; [2006] 2 FLR 629 the House of Lords held in a dispute between a lesbian couple, one of who was the biological parent of the child, that the welfare of the child was the paramount consideration and there was no question of a parental right which might over ride that consideration. Baroness Hale said:

30. My Lords, the Children Act 1989 brought together the Government’s proposals in relation to child care law and the Law Commission’s recommendations in relation to the private law. In its Working Paper No 96, Review of Child Law: Custody (1986), at para 6.22, having discussed whether there should be some form of presumption in favour of natural parents, the Commission said this:

“We conclude, therefore, that the welfare of each child in the family should continue to be the paramount consideration whenever their custody or upbringing is in question between private individuals. The welfare test itself is well able to encompass any special contribution which natural parents can make to the emotional needs of their child, in particular to his sense of identity and self-esteem, as well as the added commitment which knowledge of their parenthood may bring. We have already said that the indications are that the priority given to the welfare of the child needs to be strengthened rather than undermined. We could not contemplate making any recommendation which might have the effect of weakening the protection given to children under the present law.”

Nor should we. The statutory position is plain: the welfare of the child is the paramount consideration. As Lord MacDermott explained, this means that it “rules upon or determines the course to be followed”. There is no question of a parental right. As the Law Commission explained, “the welfare test itself is well able to encompass any special contribution which natural parents can make to the emotional needs of their child” or, as Lord MacDermott put it, the claims and wishes of parents “can be capable of ministering to the total welfare of the child in a special way”.

31. None of this means that the fact of parentage is irrelevant. The position in English law is akin to that in Australian law, as explained by Lindenburgh J in Hodak, Newman and Hodak (1993) FLC 92-421, and subsequently approved by the Full Court of the Family Court of Australia in Rice v Miller (1993) FLC 92-415 and Re Evelyn [1998] FamCA 55:

“I am of the opinion that the fact of parenthood is to be regarded as an important and significant factor in considering which proposals better advance the welfare of the child. Such fact does not, however, establish a presumption in favour of the natural parent, nor generate a preferential position in favour of the natural parent from which the Court commences its decision-making process… Each case should be determined upon an examination of its own merits and of the individuals there involved”
In her conclusion Baroness Hale said:

“44. The fact that CG is the natural mother of these children in every sense of that term, whilst raising no presumption in her favour, is undoubtedly an important and significant factor in determining what will be best for them now and in the future.”
In Re B (a child) 2009 UKSC 5 ; [2010] 1FLR 551 Lord Hope referred back to the passage in Re G set out above, saying as follows:

This passage captures the central point in the Re G case and of this case. It is a message which should not require reaffirmation but, if and in so far as it does, we’d wish to provide it in this judgment. All consideration of the importance of parenthood in private law disputes about residence must be firmly rooted in an examination of what is in the child’s best interests. This is the paramount consideration. It is only a contributor to the child’s welfare that parenthood assumes any significance. In common with all other factors bearing on what is in the best interest of the child, it must be examined for its potential to fulfil that aim. There are various ways in which it may do so, some of which were explored by Baroness Hale in Re G, but the essential task of the court is always the same.”
When granting permission to appeal McFarlane LJ said: “It is highly regrettable that the relevant case law was not drawn to the attention of the judge by counsel then instructed”. I respectfully agree. Had the two key authorities been put before the judge he would inevitably have approached his analysis from a different perspective aware that there is no “broad natural parent presumption” in existence in our law. Miss Renton who did not appear in the court below, on behalf of the Appellants submitted that had the judge approached the case from the correct legal perspective, he would not have fallen into error by elevating the father into a preferential position when he commenced his decision making process. The consequence of having done so, submits Miss Renton, is that whilst all the welfare factors properly analysed, pointed to the status quo being maintained, the biological link between the father and T had subverted the welfare factors in favour of a transfer of care to the father as a “capable father”.
I accept Miss Renton’s submission that the judge wrongly conducted his analysis of T’s best interests on the basis that there is a presumption in law in favour of a natural parent. On this basis alone the appeal must be allowed.
In support of her submission that an application of the welfare principle without an elevated presumption in favour of the father would have led the court to conclude that T should live with the Appellants with extensive contact to the father, In her grounds of appeal Miss Renton argued that the facts ‘militated strongly in favour of the status quo’, referring the court to a number of authorities predating Re G and Re B. In particular she relies on Re G (a minor – custody) [1992] 2 FCR 279 and a passage in which Lord Justice Balcombe said:

I would agree that this is not a matter of presumption in the legal sense but, nevertheless, when dealing with the custody of small children undoubtedly, as a working rule, one does not disturb the status quo unless there is a good reason to do so.
In my judgment this observation should be read against the backdrop of the views expressed by Baroness Hale in relation to natural parents in Re G and Lord Hope in Re B. If one translates the term of art “status quo” into something more meaningful by relating it directly to the welfare of a child, it simply refers in the broadest sense, to the current living arrangements of a child. For T, the status quo is that place where she is living and settled, in a familiar environment, cared for by people upon whom she can rely and who are currently offering her the love, security and consistency she needs to enable her to cope with the loss of her mother. The fact that a child of five is in such an environment and has been so for some time, will inevitably be a significant feature of the case and a matter of great importance when assessing the likely effect on her of a change in her circumstances.
In the same way that the fact that a person is a natural parent does not in itself create a presumption in favour of that person in the proceedings, neither does (as Balcombe LJ observed), the fact that a child has been living with a party for a significant period of time; each are factors of significance which will be taken into account and given appropriate weight by a court when determining the best interests of a child Whether any such factor is determinative of a particular case will depend on the unique facts of that case.

I’ll clarify this – this is the law for PRIVATE law proceedings, and in care proceedings, there is clear authority that the best person to bring up a child is the parent.

“The best person to bring up a child is the natural parent. It matters not whether the parent is wise or foolish, rich or poor, educated or illiterate, provided thechild’s moral and physical health are not endangered.”

Lord Templeman in Re KD (A Minor) (Access: Principles) [1988] 2 FLR 139 at 141A.

This has been cited approvingly in dozens of cases and is a fundamental underpinning of public children law. It at essence means that it is not the job of the Court when considering a Care Order application to think about whether the child might have a happier life, or better standard of living and better opportunities if they lived with foster carers or nice adopters, but to decide whether the parents care of the child was harmful to them in a way that could not continue. It is the bulwark against social engineering.

(Many would argue, and Owen Jones in particular has argued that a large part of the adoption system is social engineering, moving children from poor working-class families to middle-class ones, but if the Court does its job properly this ought not to happen)

There might well be some tricky decisions in future months when the options before the Court are not parent v foster care, but ‘good enough but not great parent’ versus ‘stellar grandparents’ – it must be very hard to resist the tempation to ‘fix’ the children’s lives by leaving them with far more capable grandparents. But that is a tempation that Lord Templeman warned us to avoid.

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Posted in case law and tagged appeal, appointing a guardian to care for a child after your death, article 6, Court of Appeal, laspo, legal aid, no broad presumption in favour of a natural parent, re e-r a child 2015, testmentary guardian. Bookmark the permalink.

really expensive legal researchers

Posted on February 16, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

Lindner v Rawlins 2015

http://www.familylaw.co.uk/news_and_comment/lindner-v-rawlins-2015-ewca-civ-51#.VNymu_msVic

In this case, the Court of Appeal were dealing with an appeal from a husband relating to divorce proceedings about a Judge’s refusal to order the police to provide him with information / a statement. There had been a complaint from the wife (or the wife’s new partner, hence the husband’s interest) about an allegation of criminal damage to a Sky tv satellite dish.

The husband had done a lot of legal research, but was sadly relying on the Civil Procedure Rules and a case called Durham County Council v Dunn [2012] EWCA Civ 1654 which relates to the duties of disclosure and inspection owed by one party in litigation to the other. Neither were really relevant in this case, which was Family Procedure Rules and relating to an order for disclosure against a third party. I personally think that the husband had made a pretty decent fist of assembling his case, he’d just started from the wrong assumptions.

The Court of Appeal refused the appeal, but this is the relevant bit and why it is worth reporting.

The second observation is in no way a criticism of the husband who presented his case to us courteously and as comprehensively as he could. Nevertheless, the fact that he was not represented meant that he had approached it on a mistaken basis. The task that would normally have been fulfilled by the parties’ legal representatives, of finding relevant documents amongst the material presented, and researching the law and its application to the facts of the case, had to be done by the judges of the Court of Appeal instead. This is not a satisfactory state of affairs as the time taken to attend to this is considerable and cannot be spared in what is already a very busy court.

And

I agree with the judgment of Black LJ. I also wish, wholeheartedly, to endorse her observation at [32]. The procedural issue with which this appeal is concerned is technical and unusual. The husband could not be expected to have mastered this area of the law in order to be able to present his appeal in a way that assisted the court. The wife was neither present nor represented. Yet again, the court was without any legal assistance and had to spend time researching the law for itself then attempting to apply it to the relevant facts in order to arrive at the correct legal answer. To do the latter exercise meant that the court itself had to trawl through a large amount of documents in the file. All this involves an expensive use of judicial time, which is in short supply as it is. Money may have been saved from the legal aid funds, but an equal amount of expense, if not more, has been incurred in terms of the costs of judges’ and court time. The result is that there is, in fact, no economy at all. Worse, this way of dealing with cases runs the risk that a correct result will not be reached because the court does not have the legal assistance of counsel that it should have and the court has no other legal assistance available to it.

It is quite easy to read this as a kicking to Chris[tian] Gray-ling and the devillish torments he has assembled for justice in his Red Room (and there’s an image you will be stuck with for the rest of the day, sorry), but I’m not quite sure that it is.

We don’t specifically get told what the husband does for a living, but we do know that there is a matrimonial home of a size for a family of four (husband, wife, two kids) and that it is in the Bromley area (because that was the original Court), so one might hazard a guess that to obtain and sustain a mortgage both parties would probably fall outside of the income limits for legal aid, even before the reforms. The husband is clearly bright and capable – one might criticise him for focussing his intellect in the wrong direction rather than moving on, but that’s by the by.

If I were staking money on it, it would be that this husband would not have qualified for free legal advice and representation even before Chris Grayling got his hands on the legal reins and made his changes of course.

If this was supposed to be an economy though, it isn’t. The Legal Aid Agency might have saved a few thousand in legal fees for someone to research and advise the husband (and they’d have advised against an appeal) but the taxpayer overall has lost out because three very senior Judges had to spend valuable time researching and working out the proper basis for the appeal and whether or not it should be granted.

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Posted in case law, costs and tagged chris grayling, Court of Appeal, court of appeal complaining that cost savings are no saving at all, laspo, legal aid, legal aid cuts, lindner v rawlins. Bookmark the permalink.

Re D (part 2) a damp squid

Posted on January 7, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

The President’s judgment in Re D (part 2) is up. The blog post about part 1 is here:-

https://suesspiciousminds.com/2014/11/03/everyone-really-ought-to-read-re-d/

Re D is the case in which parents had a care order at home, the LA removed under the Care order, there was no legal aid to challenge that decision despite father lacking capacity to instruct a solicitor. Then the LA lodged an application for a Placement Order, and as it was not joined up with care proceedings, there was no legal aid for THAT either.

Father’s legal team were not only acting for free, but they had to write the Official Solicitor an indemnity that if a costs order was made against the O/S they would pay it. Which is above and beyond.

So Part 2 is all about whether Legal Aid would be granted for the father under s10 LASPO (exceptional circumstances) and if not, what would happen.

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/HCJ/2015/2.html

Annoyingly, as keeps happening before the President, the Legal Aid Agency eventually blinked and granted funding, thus avoiding a judgment that might declare that s10 LASPO as being practiced is incompatible with article 6. So we don’t get a valuable precedent because there was no live issue to try. Grrrr.

However, note that the public funding granted here is still subject to an ongoing merits review (that’s NOT what happens in care proceedings – even if your case looks hopeless you are still entitled to have a lawyer fight it for you)

The next hearing took place on 2 December 2014. As can be seen from the Annex, the final piece of the legal aid jigsaw had fallen into place the day before. My order recited the position as follows:

“The Father has a substantive funding certificate to cover all work undertaken to date and up to a final hearing in both the s.39 CA 1989 and s.21 ACA 2002 applications. The Official Solicitor will, in the usual manner, conduct an ongoing review as to the merits of the case and this may effect whether the funding certificate will remain in place.

The Mother has a substantive certificate to cover the period up to the exchange of final evidence in respect of both the s.39 CA 1989 and s.21 ACA 2002 applications, whereupon it will be subject to a merits review and report to the LAA which will determine whether the certificate will be extended to cover the final hearing.”

So it could be that if all of the professional evidence is against the parents, they will have no legal aid to have lawyers to challenge and test that evidence at a final hearing, although what is at stake is adoption.

The President has strong views about this (though note that parents routinely don’t get lawyers to help them on applications for leave to oppose the making of adoption orders, which also feels pretty shabby to me)

I have set out the parents’ legal aid position in paragraph 14 above. It will be noticed that there is, as yet, no assurance that legal aid will be in place for the final hearing. This causes me some disquiet. Whatever view may be taken as to their prospects of success at the final hearing, a matter on which I express no views whatever, though recognising, as I have earlier noted (Re D, para 9), that the report of the independent social worker is unfavourable to the parents, I would view with the very gravest concern any suggestion that they should be denied legal aid on ‘merits’ grounds. Given the extreme gravity of the issues at stake and their various problems and difficulties, it is, as I said before (Re D, paras 3, 31), unthinkable that the parents should have to face the local authority’s application without proper representation. I repeat what I said in my earlier judgment:

“To require them to do so would be unconscionable; it would be unjust; it would involve a breach of their rights under Articles 6 and 8 of the Convention; it would be a denial of justice.”

A parent facing the permanent removal of their child must be entitled to put their case to the court, however seemingly forlorn, and that must surely be as much the right of a parent with learning disabilities (as in the case of the mother) or a parent who lacks capacity (as in the case of the father) as of any other parent. It is one of the oldest principles of our law – it goes back over 400 centuries to the earliest years of the seventeenth century – that no-one is to be condemned unheard. I trust that all involved will bear this in mind.

The really sad thing about this case is encapsulated by the mother

This is a case about three human beings. It is a case which raises the most profound issues for each of these three people. The outcome will affect each of them for the rest of their lives. Even those of us who spend our lives in the family courts can have but a dim awareness of the agony these parents must be going through as they wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, to learn whether or not their child is to be returned to them. Yet for much of the time since their son was taken from them – for far too much of that time – the focus of the proceedings has had to be on the issue of funding, which has indeed been the primary focus of the last three hearings. The parents can be forgiven for thinking that they are trapped in a system which is neither compassionate nor even humane.
I leave the last word to the mother, who, together with her husband, was present at the hearing on 2 December 2014 as at previous hearings. In an up-dating note dated 8 December 2014, her counsel, Ms Sarah Morgan QC and Ms Lucy Sprinz, said this:

“The mother was distressed following the last hearing that the child had not, as far as she had heard it, even been mentioned during the course of the submissions and discussions between Counsel (including her own) and the Court. It doesn’t, she remarked afterwards, seem right that so much time has to be taken up about the legal aid when it should be about D.”

They added, “Clearly she is right about that.” For my own part I merely pose this question: Is this really the best we can do?

Hear hear.

Equally, it can’t be a decent solution to this situation that we have to get a case before the President before the Legal Aid Agency will blink and see sense. He can’t hear all of them.

The annexe is shocking- it has taken nine months of wrangling to sort out legal aid for something that most people would assume was automatic.

I completely agree with the position of the ALC (Association of Lawyers for Children) and ADCS (Association of Directors of Childrens Services) – parents facing an application for a placement order should get non-means, non-merits public funding regardless of when the application takes place.

…the ALC makes these two assertions:

“Section 10 of LASPO is not being implemented so as to provide the safety net for the most vulnerable.

Placement orders in particular should be included in those proceedings for which non-means-tested and non-merits-tested public funding is provided.”

I draw attention to two of the points made by the ADCS. The first is that:

“From the perspective of a child on a journey to a permanent placement, ADCS would argue that the impact of a care order and a placement order are effectively equivalent; the same is true of their impact on the child’s parents. ADCS would therefore argue that equivalent checks and balances are required before either order is made. There appears to be no logic to support treating the orders differently simply because they have become decoupled in complex proceedings

In this case it would appear to ADCS that the application of the current legal aid rules has led to an injustice and could create a detrimental impact on the child in question. We would agree with the court that the State has created a problem by introducing these rules and should therefore find a means of resolving the problem.”

[For the benefit of pedants, yes, I know it is ‘squib’, but I like that particular eggcorn. Actually, this case isn’t quite as damp as it appeared when I first read it, because there’s a rap over the knuckles for LASPO here, although it doesn’t end up being the declaration of incompatibility that many were hoping for]

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Posted in adoption, case law, costs and tagged article 6, legal aid, legal aid agency, legal aid for placement orders, president, re d a minor part 2 2015, re d part 2. Bookmark the permalink.

if legal aid is being refused to people such as this mother I am satisfied that injustices will occur

Posted on October 10, 2014 by suesspiciousminds

This is a report of a short judgment from Her Honour Judge Hallam sitting in Middlesbrough, building on a decision from District Judge Reed in the same Court. Huge credit to both of them for calling out the Legal Aid Agency on this dreadful state of affairs (the LAA in turn are just doing what they are told to do by our Lord Chancellor)

Re H 2014

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/OJ/2014/B127.html

This was a private law case, between a mother and a father. The father had legal aid, because the child was known to social services and they were supporting him. The mother did not. [One could make far more sense of it if it were the other way around – the father had a lesser need of representation because his case was being supported]

At a hearing in May 2014, the Court picked up that this mother was not someone who was going to be able to represent herself – there was an assessment of her cognitive abilities that assisted with that

She is not sufficiently disadvantaged to say that she does not have capacity to litigate. She has capacity to litigate but in my judgment that is only with the assistance of a solicitor. She has difficulties in hearing, in speech and intellectual difficulties. She is unable to read or write. They are not fanciful difficulties. In previous public law proceedings there has been a report from Dr Cooper, who is a psychologist, informing the court of the mother’s cognitive difficulties and learning difficulties. Having seen the mother in court, I am satisfied that she would not have been able to represent herself in a case as complex as this and therefore, in my judgment, she was, to all intents and purposes, prevented from having access to this court

At that hearing, D J Reed gave these directions

The matter came before District Judge Reed in May of this year, on 19th May. As I say, it was apparent at that stage that the mother opposed the father’s application. Furthermore, it was apparent that the local authority supported the father in his application. There was a recommendation about contact. When the matter came before District Judge Reed, the local authority, Middlesbrough Council, were made a party to the proceedings. At that stage the mother was self-representing and the judge was clearly concerned about that and there is a lengthy preamble to the order that he made in May. That preamble recorded that the attendance of GHu in court to support the mother was not appropriate, given the issue in the case. He recorded that:

‘In the absence of legal aid to secure representation of the mother, it is inevitable that her article 6 and her article 8 ECHR rights will be at risk of being violated, given her evident speech, hearing and learning difficulties, if the case proceeds without further representation.’

That could not have been a clearer indication of the judge’s opinion and consideration of this matter and therefore he also said that:

‘On its facts and having regard to the surrounding circumstances and, in particular, the recent party status of Middlesbrough local authority, the criteria for assessing an exceptional grant of legal aid are likely to be made out.’

He went further and said that the local authority involvement in the current proceedings is based largely on public law and child protection issues relating to the respondent mother’s fifth child, subject to public law proceedings which concluded in 2014, resulting in both care and placement orders. He said there is considerable similarity and overlap in the issues which present in both sets of proceedings. That part of the preamble continues with:

‘Furthermore, in the circumstances of this particular case and those of the respondent mother, it would be unrealistic and potentially unjust to expect the respondent mother to be a self-representing person.’

Therefore he adjourned what was to be a final hearing on that occasion in order for a further application to be made to the legal aid authorities.

You might think that you could not have a clearer indication (particularly in light of Q v Q) that the State would be breaching mother’s article 6 and article 8 human rights by not allowing her to have free legal representation.

You will, however, not be surprised to know that the Legal Aid Agency did not grant her exceptional funding under s10 LASPO. Of course they didn’t. As part of that decision, they considered that there was no risk of article 6 or article 8 breach. Of course they are in a far better position to assess that than the Judge who is seized of all the facts and knows the stakes. Of course they are.

The second matter that I am told that Mr Keegan relied upon was that there would be no breach of Convention rights. I find that statement astounding. A district judge had already found, having seen the mother, that undoubtedly her article 6 and article 8 rights would be breached. When I pause to consider the article 6 first of all, which is to ensure that people have fair trials in the courts of this country, and in order to do that should have equality of arms, I cannot see how anyone can come to the conclusion that this mother’s article 6 rights were not in jeopardy. I repeat again the father has the support of a legal representative. The local authority, who are advancing a case contrary to that of the mother’s, has legal representation. Without legal aid, therefore, the mother, on her own, would be facing two advocates pursuing a case against her. On any basis that cannot be equality of arms. She is the party with the least ability, the greatest vulnerability and she should have had the benefit of legal representation. She is faced with the father, who has the greater ability and the support of social services; as I say, both being legally represented. In effect, this vulnerable mother is faced with two advocates running a case against her and she does not even have one. I cannot think of a clearer breach of article 6. Article 8 – this matter is clearly about family life and the mother’s right to family life, whether the children should be in her care or not and what contact she should have. Again, I cannot see any conclusion other than that her article 8 rights were engaged, as the district judge said, in my view, properly, in the court below.

Fortunately for this woman, someone stepped in to represent her pro bono, but that doesn’t get away from the fact that we simply don’t have a system where s10 LASPO is the safety net that the MOJ claimed that it was when they were getting this awful legislation through Parliament.

If a Judge says that a person’s article 6 rights will be breached without representation, that’s a really really really good indicator that they would be. Judges don’t say these things for fun.

Ithas been fortunate that she has had the assistance of someone today because this matter has reached agreement. However, it is not right that legal professionals should have to attend a hearing, as complex as this one, without remuneration. The mother still has concerns about the father’s care for the children and many of those concerns are shared by the local authority, so she has not been running a fanciful case. The matter has resolved; it has resolved with an order and a very detailed working agreement. Again, I cannot see how this mother could have entered into that working agreement which has resolved this case without the assistance of Mr Nixon here to help her understand it, consider whether it was right and ultimately agree to it. Therefore, I have given this judgment because I am satisfied that this mother should have had legal aid and should have been represented. Mothers in her situation should have proper and full access to the court with the assistance of legal advice. As I have said, I am going to order a transcript of this judgment, both for the Legal Aid Board and also because I feel that it should be shown to the President of the Family Division to show what is happening in these courts. I am told that since April 2013 there have been only eight or nine cases where exceptional legal aid has been granted. I do not know if that is correct, but if legal aid is being refused to people such as this mother I am satisfied that injustices will occur. Had this matter proceeded without the assistance of Mr Nixon to a fully contested hearing, this court would have been put in an impossible situation. Having said that, I approve the order. I am grateful to everybody for the time they have spent and I am also, as I keep saying, very grateful to Mr Nixon for having attended today.

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Posted in case law, costs, private law and tagged article 6, article 8, district judge reed, her honour judge hallam, legal aid, legal aid agency, legal representation, public funding, q v q, s10 laspo. Bookmark the permalink.

LASPO and article 6 – a huge case

Posted on August 6, 2014 by suesspiciousminds

The President has given his judgment in Q v Q, and it is a helluva read.

If you want the “Too Long: Didn’t Read” version – in a case where the Judge concludes that it is necessary for a party to be legally represented or to have the costs of an expert paid for and that failure to do so would be a breach of article 6, and the Legal Aid Agency refuse to use their power under s10 LASPO to grant exceptional funding, the Court would be entitled to order that Her Majesty’s Court Service pay for the legal representation.

The original Q v Q I wrote about here :- https://suesspiciousminds.com/2014/06/09/q-v-q-an-impasse/

The facts broadly are that a father was seeking contact with his child, an expert assessment as to future risk had been obtained, he disagreed with the conclusion and wanted to challenge it by way of cross-examination, but wasn’t in a position to do that himself, it was a task that would have been beyond him. At the end of the judgment, the President floated the idea that if the Court considered that a party’s article 6 right to a fair trial was being breached, and the Legal Aid Agency wouldn’t pay for representation, then the Court Service might well have a duty to. He didn’t finally determine that, giving the Ministry of Justice a chance to intervene and make representations as to why not (they didn’t take that chance, because they are not the brightest crayon in the box)

The President also bundled up with Q v Q two private law cases where serious sexual offences were being alleged against the father and the Legal Aid Agency’s refusal to grant exceptional funding was going to place the Court in a position where the father might have to cross-examine in person the alleged victim. One of those, D v K and B 2014 I wrote about here https://suesspiciousminds.com/2014/03/14/equality-of-arms-d-v-k-and-b-2014/

The judgment in Q vQ 2014 is here

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/HCJ/2014/31.html

I have not been, over the last few years, the biggest flag-waver for the President – many of my grumbles are about his performance as a reforming administrator rather than a Judge; but he delivers for justice here. And puts a target on his head, because this won’t be a popular decision in the Ministry of Justice, who are probably in a room now with a flip chart drawing up battle-plans and watching old episodes of Judge John Deed to try to pick up some tips for when the MOJ are at war with a ‘rogue’ Judge.

Let’s have a quick look at why the MOJ, when placed on notice that the President was contemplating making a decision that would in effect be – “either the LAA write a cheque or HMCS write a cheque, but a cheque’s going to get written”, decided not to get involved

I decided to invite the Secretary of State for Justice (para 20) to:

“intervene in the proceedings to make such submissions as are appropriate in relation, in particular, to the argument that in a situation such as this the expenditure which is not available from the Legal Aid Agency but which, in the view of the court, if it be the view of the court, is necessary to be incurred to ensure proceedings which are just and fair, can be met either from the Legal Aid Agency by route of the other certificate, the mother’s certificate, or directly at the expense of the court.”
On 25 June 2014 I received a letter from Shailesh Vara MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice in the Ministry of Justice. After an opening paragraph the letter reads as follows:

“I am very grateful for the opportunity to intervene but the Ministry of Justice does not propose to do so in this case.
Ministers have no right or power to intervene in individual legal aid funding decisions made by the Director of Legal Aid Casework. The independence of the Director is an important statutory measure, which ensures impartiality in decision making. From the information recorded in your judgment, it is clear that the father in this case failed to satisfy the statutory merits criteria required to access funding. The merits test is a fundamental and long established part of the legal aid system, and ensures that limited public money is focussed on sufficiently meritorious cases and is not available in cases lacking sufficient merit. It is clearly established that it is legitimate for the Government to focus limited public resources through applying a merits test.
As you record in your judgment, there is expert evidence in the case (one report plus addenda commissioned by the father and one plus addendum commissioned jointly by the mother and the father) which set out unequivocally that the son would not be safe in his father’s presence and that at the moment there should be no contact between the father and the son. There have always been litigants in person in family proceedings, whether because individuals do not qualify for legal aid or choose to represent themselves, and the Courts have been able to resolve such proceedings justly and fairly.
I agree with you that further delay should be avoided in this case and, in the absence of a mechanism for funding the appearance of the experts or representation for the father, you will have to decide this issue in the absence of the cross examination you refer to in your judgment.”

So, we’re not coming, and if you can’t find a lawyer to do the cross-examination for free, then you’ll just have to decide the case without any cross-examination.

Do you remember in 1984 how Orwell talks about the Ministries in Airstrip One being named for the opposite of what they really do? So their Ministry of Peace was really a Ministry of War and so on? Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Ministry of Justice. Bravo, bravo.

The President goes through the various options, looking chiefly at the cases involving an allegation of rape in private law proceedings which is challenged and where the ‘accused’ has no lawyer. In short they are ‘pro bono’, the Guardian conducting the cross-examination, the father doing it in person or the Judge doing it and shows why each are insufficient and flawed.

He then establishes that as a result of European jurisprudence, notably Airey v Ireland, and the Human Rights Act, the Court itself is bound by article 6 and fair trial and would itself be breaching the person’s right to a fair trial if it were to conduct the trial in a way that it considers to be unjust

46. The court is a public authority for the purposes of the Human Rights Act 1998 and is therefore required, subject only to section 6(2), to act in a way which is compatible with Articles 6 and 8 of the Convention. So far as is material for present purposes Article 6(1) provides that “In the determination of his civil rights and obligations … , everyone is entitled to a fair … hearing within a reasonable time”. Article 8, which guarantees “the right to respect for … private and family life”, also affords significant procedural safeguards in relation to the court process. As the Strasbourg court said in McMichael v UK (1995) 20 EHRR 205, para 87, “the decision-making process leading to measures of interference must be fair and such as to afford due respect to the interests safeguarded by Article 8.”

47. It is necessary also to have regard to Article 47 of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights:

“Everyone whose rights and freedoms guaranteed by the law of the Union are violated has the right to an effective remedy before a tribunal in compliance with the conditions laid down in this Article.
Everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal previously established by law. Everyone shall have the possibility of being advised, defended and represented.
Legal aid shall be made available to those who lack sufficient resources insofar as such aid is necessary to ensure effective access to justice.”
I do not take up time considering whether this is applicable in cases such as those before me. In any event, it is not clear that it creates any greater right than arises under Articles 6 and 8 of the Convention: see Gudanaviciene and others v Director of Legal Aid Casework and another [2014] EWHC 1840 (Admin), paras 36-37.

48. Article 6 guarantees the right of “practical” and “effective” access to the court. In the case of a litigant in person, the question is whether, without the assistance of a lawyer, the litigant will be “able to present her case properly and satisfactorily”: Airey v Ireland (Application no 6289/73) (1979) 2 EHRR 305, para 24. In that particular case, the court held that Ireland was in breach of Mrs Airey’s Article 6 rights because it was not realistic in the court’s opinion to suppose that, in litigation of the type in which she was involved, she could effectively conduct her own case, despite the assistance which the judge would afford to parties acting in person. In DEB v Germany [2011] 2 CMLR 529, para 46, the CJEU summarised the Strasbourg jurisprudence in this way:

“Ruling on legal aid in the form of assistance by a lawyer, the ECtHR has held that the question whether the provision of legal aid is necessary for a fair hearing must be determined on the basis of the particular facts and circumstances of each case and will depend, inter alia, upon the importance of what is at stake for the applicant in the proceedings, the complexity of the relevant law and procedure and the applicant’s capacity to represent himself effectively.”

49. Mantovanelli v France (Application no 21497/93) (1997) 24 EHRR 370, indicates the significance of the right to an adversarial hearing guaranteed by Article 6 specifically in the context of an expert’s report which is “likely to have a preponderant influence on the assessment of the facts by [the] court.”

The President also looked at section 31 G (6) of the amended Matrimonial and Famly Proceedings Act 1984

33….section 31G(6) of the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984, set out in Schedule 10 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, which came into effect on 22 April 2014:

“Where in any proceedings in the family court it appears to the court that any party to the proceedings who is not legally represented is unable to examine or cross-examine a witness effectively, the court is to –
(a) ascertain from that party the matters about which the witness may be able to depose or on which the witness ought to be cross-examined, and
(b) put, or cause to be put, to the witness such questions in the interests of that party as may appear to the court to be proper.”

And in conclusion

75…does section 31G(6) operate to confer on a judge of the Family Court power to forbid a party who wishes to conduct his own case from examining or cross-examining a witness? Again I have heard no sustained argument, but my inclination is to think that the answer is, no it does not, for principle suggests that such an important right is only to be cut down by express words or necessary implication, and neither is very obviously to be found in section 31G(6): see again General Mediterranean Holdings SA v Patel and Another [2000] 1 WLR 272. As against that, I can see the argument that there may be cases where to expose the alleged victim to cross-examination by the alleged perpetrator might engage the alleged victim’s rights, whether under Article 8 or Article 3, in such a way as to impose on the court an obligation under the 1998 Act to prevent it, so that in such a case section 31G(6) has to be read as giving the court the appropriate power to do so.

76. The second thing which is unclear is this: what, in contrast to the word “put” in section 31G(6), do the words “cause to be put” mean? When section 31G(6) provides that in certain circumstances “the court is to … put” questions, that must mean questioning by the judge or magistrate. In some – probably many – cases that will be entirely unproblematic. But in cases where the issues are as grave and forensically challenging as in Re B and Re C, questioning by the judge may not be appropriate or, indeed, sufficient to ensure compliance with Articles 6 and 8. There is, in my judgment, very considerable force in what Roderic Wood J and Judge Wildblood said in the passages in their judgments (respectively, para 24 and paras 6(iii)-(v)) which I have already quoted.

77. The words “cause to be put” must, in contrast, contemplate questioning by someone other than the judge. Now that someone else might be an advocate whom the court has managed to persuade to act pro bono. It might be the guardian, if there is one, or the guardian’s advocate. But there are, as both Roderic Wood J and Judge Wildblood understandably pointed out, great difficulties in expecting the guardian or the guardian’s advocate to undertake this role – difficulties which were expounded also in the argument before me. I agree with what Judge Wildblood said (para 6(ix) quoted above). The point applies with equal force in the circumstances of both Re B and Re C.

78. What then is the court to do if the father is unable to pay for his own representation and “exceptional” legal aid is not available?

79. In the ultimate analysis, if the criteria in section 31G(6) are satisfied, and if the judge is satisfied that the essential requirements of a fair trial as required by FPR 1.1 and Articles 6 and 8 cannot otherwise be met, the effect of the words “cause to be put” in section 31G(6) is, in my judgment, to enable the judge to direct that appropriate representation is to be provided by – at the expense of – the court, that is, at the expense of HMCTS.

Now, some caveats – the President is careful to say that these were cases with particular characteristics, each involving allegations of sexual offences and two involving allegations of rape, and that he had been looking at these cases in particular not s10 LASPO in general. And also we need to bear in mind that (a) the LAA might appeal this decision, as they are threatening to do with Gudanaviciene and others v Director of Legal Aid Casework and another [2014] EWHC 1840 (Admin), and (b) hardly anyone at the LAA seems to have taken on board Gudanaviciene so far, as can be seen from the Smackdown judgment from HH Judge Bellamy I wrote about yesterday. The criminal bar were all cock-a-hoop about the Op Cotton judgment and the rug was pulled out from under them by the Court of Appeal.

Here are the President’s own caveats (and if you are a Local Authority lawyer or budget-holder note the chilling implications of the LA funding intervenors or grandparents to litigate against them)

Three caveats

In this judgment I have been concerned only to consider the problems that may arise in private law cases. I have therefore not had occasion to consider any further the point I made in Q v Q (para 18), where I suggested that “In a public law case where the proceedings are brought by a local authority, one can see a possible argument that failing all else the local authority should have to pay.” That is a matter for another day.

I have concluded that there may be circumstances in which the court can properly direct that the cost of certain activities should be borne by HMCTS. I emphasise that (the provision of interpreters and translators apart) this is an order of last resort. No order of this sort should be made except by or having first consulted a High Court Judge or a Designated Family Judge.

I emphasise also that the allegation in each case is one of sexual assault, in two of the cases an allegation of rape. It may be that a similar approach is appropriate in cases of serious non-sexual assault. It may be that it will not be appropriate in less serious cases. I express no concluded views, beyond drawing attention to the trite observation that everything will, in the final analysis, depend upon the particular facts of the specific case.

Concluding observations

The Ministry of Justice, the LAA and HMCTS may wish to consider the implications. That is a matter for them. For my part I would urge the early attention of both the Children and Vulnerable Witnesses Working Group and the Family Procedure Rules Committee to those aspects of the various matters I have canvassed that fall within their respective remits.

In both of the live cases, the Judge gave the Legal Aid Agency one last chance to see sense and grant the funding under LASPO, but gave the clearest of indications that to proceed without representation would be an article 6 breach and that the Court would have to consider its own duty to fund such representation.

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Posted in case law, costs, private law and tagged airey v ireland, article 6, costs, d v k and b 2014, injustice, laspo, legal aid, legal aid agency, ministry of justice, q v q 2014, right to a fair trial. Bookmark the permalink.

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