Court : House of Lords
Decided on : Jul-30-2008
LORD HOPE OF CRAIGHEAD My Lords, 1. The question in this case is whether a local authority can obtain a summary order for possession against an occupier of a site which it owns and has been used for many years as a gipsy and travellers’ caravan site. His licence to occupy the site has come to an end. He has no enforceable right to remain there under English property law. But he claims that his removal would violate his rights under article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The facts 2. The local authority, the respondent, is the freeholder of the site which is known as the Travellers’ Site, Tameside Drive, Castle Vale, Birmingham. The site comprises 16 concrete stands for caravans and four ablution blocks. The appellant was granted a licence by the respondent to station a caravan on plot 12 in September 1987. His licence was extended to include plot 14 in November 1998. He and his family had been resident on the site for about 17 years when on 4 March 2004 the ...
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
Decided on : Mar-12-2008
LORD HOPE OF CRAIGHEAD My Lords, 1. The issue in this case is whether the Commissioners can maintain a civil claim for damages under the tort of unlawful means conspiracy against a participant in a missing trader intra-community, or carousel, fraud. Two questions need to be considered. The first is whether it is open to the Commissioners to maintain a cause of action in damages at common law as a means of recovering VAT from a person who has not been made accountable or otherwise liable for that tax by Parliament. The second is whether, if so, it is an essential requirement of the tort of unlawful means conspiracy that the conduct which is said to amount to the unlawful means should give rise to a separate action in tort against at least one of the conspirators. 2. On the second issue the Court of Appeal considered itself bound by prior Court of Appeal authority to hold that the unlawful means had to be independently actionable: [2007] EWCA Civ 39, paras 78-79. Its decision to strike ...
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
Decided on : Jun-18-2008
LORD HOFFMANN My Lords, 1. The question in this case is whether it is consistent with Convention rights as defined in section 1(1) of the Human Rights Act 1998 for a couple to be excluded from consideration as adoptive parents of a child on the ground only that they are not married. The woman is the natural mother of the child. The man is not the father but he and the woman have been living together for some years and treat the child as a member of the family. There is some evidence before the House about the nature of their relationship but there have been no findings by the court because the application has been rejected in limine on the grounds that they are not married to each other. 2. The legal obstacle to their adoption application is article 14 of the Adoption (Northern Ireland) Order 1987 (SI 1987/2203(NI 22)): (1) An adoption order shall not be made on the application of more than one person except in the circumstances specified in paragraph[s] (2) … (2) An adoption ord...
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
Decided on : Jun-25-2008
LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL My Lords, 1. I have had the advantage of reading in draft the opinions of my noble and learned friends Lord Scott of Foscote and Baroness Hale of Richmond. I gratefully adopt their summaries of the background and issues in this appeal. I can state my own conclusions relatively briefly. 2. The conduct of Mr Malcolm in subletting and ceasing to live in the flat let to him by the London Borough of Lewisham (“Lewisham”) had the effect of destroying the security of tenure he had previously enjoyed and breaching the terms of his tenancy so as to give Lewisham what was, in terms of housing law, an unanswerable claim to possession. To defeat that claim Mr Malcolm relied, unsuccessfully before Her Honour Judge Hallon but successfully before the Court of Appeal (Arden, Longmore and Toulson LJJ: [2007] EWCA Civ 763, [2008] Ch 129), on the terms of sections 22 and 24 in Part III of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. The question is whether, on the facts an...
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
Decided on : Oct-22-2008
LORD HOFFMANN My Lords, 1. This appeal concerns the validity of section 9 of the British Indian Ocean Territory (Constitution) Order 2004 (“the Constitution Order”): “(1) Whereas the Territory was constituted and is set aside to be available for the defence purposes of the Government of the United Kingdom and the Government of the United States of America, no person has the right of abode in the Territory. (2) Accordingly, no person is entitled to enter or be present in the Territory except as authorised by or under this Order or any other law for the time being in force in the Territory.” 2. The Constitution was made by prerogative Order in Council. The Divisional Court (Hooper LJ and Cresswell J) held section 9 to be invalid and this decision was affirmed by the Court of Appeal (Sir Anthony Clarke MR and Waller and Sedley LJJ). The Secretary of State appeals to your Lordships’ House. 3. The British Indian Ocean Territory (“BIOT”) is situated ...
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
Decided on : Jul-09-2008
LORD HOFFMANN My Lords, 1. The Achilleas is a single-decker bulk carrier of some 69,000 dwt built in 1994. By a time charter dated 22 January 2003 the owners let her to the charterers for about five to seven months at a daily hire rate of US$13,500. By an addendum dated 12 September 2003 the parties fixed the vessel for a further five to seven months at a daily rate of US$16,750. The latest date for redelivery was 2 May 2004. 2. By April 2004, market rates had more than doubled compared with the previous September. On 20 April 2004 the charterers gave notice of redelivery between 30 April and 2 May 2004. On the following day, the owners fixed the vessel for a new four to six month hire to another charterer, following on from the current charter, at a daily rate of US$39,500. The latest date for delivery to the new charterers, after which they were entitled to cancel, was 8 May 2004. 3. With less than a fortnight of the charter to run, the charterers fixed the vessel under a subcharter ...
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
Decided on : Apr-09-2008
LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL My Lords, 1. The appellants are the mothers of two young men, both aged 19, who lost their lives while serving in the British army in Iraq. Fusilier Gordon Campbell Gentle was serving with the 1st Battalion The Royal Highland Fusiliers when he was killed by a roadside bomb on 28 June 2004. Trooper David Jeffrey Clarke was serving with the Queen’s Royal Lancers when he was killed by “friendly fire” on 25 March 2003. These deaths have been fully investigated at duly-constituted inquests conducted in the United Kingdom, and there are no outstanding questions about when, where and in what circumstances they respectively died. 2. The appellants contend that by virtue of sections 1 and 2 of the Human Rights Act 1998 and article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights they have an enforceable legal right sounding in domestic law to require Her Majesty’s Government to establish an independent public enquiry into all the circumstances surrou...
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
Decided on : Jun-18-2008
LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL My Lords, 1. At about 9.30 am on New Year’s Day 2002, towards the end of an all-night New Year’s Eve party held in a flat in Hackney, a shot was fired which killed two men. The appellant Iain Davis was in due course extradited from the United States, indicted on two counts of murder, tried at the Central Criminal Court before His Honour Judge Paget QC and a jury and, on 25 May 2004, convicted on both counts. He appeals to the House against the dismissal of his appeal against conviction by the Court of Appeal Criminal Division on 19 May 2006: [2006] EWCA Crim 1155, [2006] 1 WLR 3130. 2. At trial the appellant admitted that he had been at the party but claimed that he had left before the shooting and denied having been the gunman. Appearances were against him. He had gone to the United States on a false passport shortly after the murders. When questioned by the police after his return to this country he had declined to give any answers. In evidence he...
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
Decided on : Dec-10-2008
LORD HOFFMANN My Lords, 1. For my part, I would have been content to dismiss these appeals for the reasons given by Carnwath LJ in his lucid and convincing judgment. But since your Lordships are minded in one respect to differ from his analysis, I must explain why on this point I regretfully feel obliged to dissent. For this purpose, I gratefully adopt the recital of the facts and statutory provisions in the speech to be delivered by my noble and learned friend Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, which I have had the advantage of reading in draft. 2. The Leasehold Reform Act 1967 provided in section 9 that the price payable for the house should be the amount which, on certain specified assumptions, it would be expected to realise if sold on the open market. The open market means everyone who could reasonably be expected to be interested in buying. Among these potential purchasers there will sometimes be one or more to whom the property would be worth more than to others. In IRC v Clay [1914]...
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
Decided on : Jul-30-2008
LORD HOFFMANN My Lords, 1. This appeal concerns the assessability for non-domestic rating of a group of buildings belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (commonly known as the Mormon Church) in the Borough of Chorley in Lancashire. The largest and most imposing is the Temple, which stands 48m high and has 6306m2 of internal floor space on five floors. It is fully air conditioned and is fitted and finished both externally and internally to the highest standards. In addition, in proximity to the Temple, there are (i) the Stake Centre, a single storey building containing a space of 1227m2 divided by a moveable partition into a chapel and a multi-purpose hall, together with a number of small meeting rooms, an office and a baptistery (ii) the Missionary Training Centre, a three storey building containing class rooms, dormitory rooms, cafeteria and ancillary rooms, as well as the President’s flat, which is subject to council tax (iii) the Patrons’ Services B...
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