Court : House of Lords
Decided on : Jun-25-2008
LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL My Lords, 1. The appellant, a Kosovar, arrived in this country from Kosovo, via Macedonia, on 2 September 1999. He was then aged 13. He claimed asylum four days later. It was refused on 27 April 2004, a delay of over four and a half years. Conditions in Kosovo having changed, the appellant now has no ground for claiming asylum. But had his application been decided before 10 December 2003, when he became eighteen and so ceased to be an unaccompanied minor, he would, depending on the date of the decision, under the policies in force, from time to time, have been granted exceptional leave to remain in this country for four years or until his eighteenth birthday, with at least the chance of obtaining indefinite leave to remain thereafter. The respondent Secretary of State now seeks to remove him to Kosovo. The appellant resists removal, relying on his rights under article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the right to respect for private and family life...
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
Decided on : Apr-16-2008
LORD HOPE OF CRAIGHEAD My Lords, 1. I have had the advantage of reading in draft the speech of my noble and learned friend Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury. Like him, I can find no merit in any of the grounds on which the decision of the Extra Division was challenged. I would dismiss the appeal. LORD SCOTT OF FOSCOTE My Lords, 2. I have had the opportunity of reading a draft of the opinion on this appeal prepared by my noble and learned friend Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury and I am in complete and respectful agreement with the reasons he has given for dismissing this appeal. There is nothing I can usefully add and so I too, for the same reasons, would dismiss the appeal. LORD RODGER OF EARLSFERRY My Lords, 3. I have had the advantage of reading in draft the speech which is to be delivered by my noble and learned friend, Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury. I am in full agreement with it and, for the reasons he gives, I too would dismiss the appeal. LORD WALKER OF GESTINGTHORPE My Lords, 4. I have ...
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
Decided on : Dec-10-2008
LORD HOFFMANN My Lords, 1. I have had the advantage of reading in draft the speech of my noble and learned friend Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury. For the reasons he gives, with which I agree, I would allow the appeals in Knowsley Housing Trust v White and Porter v Shepherds Bush Housing Association, but dismiss the appeal in Honeygan-Green v Islington London Borough Council. LORD WALKER OF GESTINGTHORPE My Lords, 2. I have had the privilege of reading in draft the magisterial opinion of my noble and learned friend Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury. I am in full agreement with it, and for the reasons that Lord Neuberger gives I would dispose of these three appeals as he proposes. 3. I venture to add one brief footnote, and I do so largely as a matter of respect for Lord Browne-Wilkinson, who gave the leading speech in this House in Burrows v Brent London Borough Council [1996] 1 WLR 1448. Lord Browne-Wilkinson did not, as I read the authorities, invent the rather unfortunate phrase “tole...
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
Decided on : Apr-23-2008
LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL My Lords, 1. I have had the benefit of reading in draft the opinions of my noble and learned friends Lord Scott of Foscote and Lord Rodger of Earlsferry, whose summaries of the facts, history and issues I gratefully adopt and need not repeat. 2. Like my noble and learned friends I would dismiss the Chief Constable’s appeal. Despite the range, ability and interest of the argument addressed to the House, I can state my conclusions on the two issues raised in argument very shortly and simply. 3. As to the first issue, the test of self-defence as a defence in a civil action is well-established and well-understood. There is no reason in principle why it should be the same test as obtains in a criminal trial, since the ends of justice which the two rules respectively exist to serve are different. There is nothing to suggest that the civil test as currently applied causes dissatisfaction or injustice and no case is made for changing it, even if that were an appr...
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
Decided on : Jul-02-2008
LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL My Lords, 1. On 4 March 2005 the four appellants were convicted in the Crown Court at Leeds before Wakerley J and a jury of murdering Tyrone Clarke on 22 April 2004. The indictment contained a second count, of violent disorder, on which no verdict was returned. It was not alleged or proved that any of the appellants had personally struck the fatal blow or blows and they were convicted as accessories or secondary parties to the joint enterprise which culminated in the death of the deceased. The Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal (Hooper LJ, Gibbs and Roderick Evans JJ) dismissed their appeals against conviction on 23 February 2007, for reasons given by Hooper LJ: [2007] EWCA Crim 342, [2007] 1 WLR 2191. Their appeals to the House raise a narrow but significant question on the direction to be given to the jury concerning the liability of an accessory on facts such as arose in the present case. The facts 2. There was, it seems, a history of confrontation bet...
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
Decided on : Apr-30-2008
LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL 1. The issue in this appeal is whether the Secretary of State for Health acted lawfully in issuing the guidance she did to employing bodies within the National Health Service in April 2006. At first instance Stanley Burnton J, who also had other issues to decide, upheld the lawfulness of the guidance: [2007] EWHC 199 (QB). The Court of Appeal (Sedley, Maurice Kay and Rimer LJJ) [2007] EWCA Civ 1139 held that it was unlawful. The Secretary of State challenges that decision in this appeal to the House. Pending the outcome of this litigation the guidance has been suspended. Background 2. Under sections 1 - 3 of the National Health Service Act 1977, as under its successor statute, the Secretary of State for Health had an overall responsibility to provide or secure the provision of medical and related services under the auspices of the National Health Service. To ensure the provision of adequate care and treatment it is necessary that there should be appropriately q...
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 all my noble and learned friends. In the result, I reach the same conclusion as my noble and learned friend Baroness Hale of Richmond, for whose exposition of the issues I also am grateful. But, for reasons given by my noble and learned friends Lord Hope of Craighead and Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, I reach this conclusion with fewer misgivings than she expresses. 2. Viewed through the eyes of the appellants, the Home Secretary’s family policy seems harsh: they have suffered the misfortune of losing their parents and now suffer the additional misfortune of losing a benefit which they would have enjoyed had they arrived here with their parents. But viewed through the eyes of the Home Secretary, the policy looks very different: he faced a formidable administrative problem caused by the difficulty, delay and expense of removing families, and the solution was to grant an indulgenc...
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
Decided on : Jan-23-2008
LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL My Lords, 1. I have had the advantage of reading in draft the opinion of my noble and learned friend Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood. I am in full agreement with it and would, for the reasons which he gives, allow the appeal and make the order which he proposes. LORD RODGER OF EARLSFERRY My Lords, 2. I have the advantage of considering the speech of my noble and learned friend, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, in draft. I agree with it and, for the reasons he gives, I too would allow the appeal and make the order which he proposes. BARONESS HALE OF RICHMOND My Lords, 3. I agree that this appeal should be allowed, for the reasons given by my noble and learned friend, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood. It is not strictly necessary, therefore, to express a view on the issues discussed by my noble and learned friend, Lord Mance, in paragraphs 42 to 53 of his opinion. But they were fully canvassed in argument before us. I feel it only fair, therefore, to confess...
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
Decided on : Feb-27-2008
LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL My Lords, 1. The issue in this appeal is whether loss attributable to the death by suicide of the late Mr Thomas Corr is recoverable by his dependent widow under section 1 of the Fatal Accidents Act 1976 in this action against his former employer. 2. Mr Corr was employed as a maintenance engineer by the appellant company (“the employer”), a manufacturer of light commercial vehicles. On 22 June 1996, then aged almost 31, he was working on a prototype line of presses which produced panels for Vauxhall vehicles. He was working, with another, to remedy a fault on an automated arm with a sucker for lifting panels. The machine picked up a metal panel from the press, without warning, and moved it forcibly in Mr Corr’s direction. He would have been decapitated had he not instinctively moved his head. He was struck to the right side of his head and most of his right ear was severed. 3. As a result of this accident, Mr Corr underwent long and painful re...
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
Decided on : Feb-20-2008
LORD HOPE OF CRAIGHEAD My Lords, 1. I have had the advantage of reading in draft the opinion of my noble and learned friend Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury. I adopt with gratitude his account of the facts and of the provisions of the contract that have given rise to the dispute. I add these brief comments to explain why, after some initial hesitation, I agree with him that the appeal should be dismissed. 2. For the reasons that were explained in Melville Dundas Ltd v George Wimpey UK Ltd [2007] UKHL18, [2007] 1 WLR 1136, the background to the case is to be found in the provisions of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996. Section 108(1) of that Act provides that a party to a construction contract has the right to refer a dispute arising under the contract to adjudication under a procedure complying with that section. Section 109 provides that a party to a construction contract is entitled to payment by instalments for any work under the contract and that the parties a...
Tag this Judgment!