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 : Apr-16-2008
LORD HOFFMANN My Lords, 1. In 2000, Newnham College decided to build a new library at a cost of about 7.5m. As an educational institution, Newnham makes exempt supplies for the purpose of VAT. Making exempt supplies is all very well for the recipients, because they pay no VAT. It is less attractive if you are the supplier, because you are not credited with the input tax on the goods and services on which you have been charged VAT. For a famously poor women’s college, the VAT on the cost of the library was a large sum of money. 2. The college therefore took advice on a scheme which would enable it to recover the VAT. The first step was to acquire a shelf company and call it Newnham College Library Company Ltd (“the company”). The college held all the shares and members of the college formed the board of directors. On the completion of the new library, the college leased it to the company for a term of 11 years at a reviewable rent of 165,000 a year. That in itself woul...
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
Decided on : Jan-23-2008
LORD HOPE OF CRAIGHEAD My Lords, 1. I am grateful to my noble and learned friend, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe, for his comprehensive description of the legislative and factual background to these appeals and his analysis of the competing arguments, and to my noble and learned friend, Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, for his further examination of the issues that are before us in this case. I agree with both of them that the Commissioners’ appeal should be dismissed in relation to Mr Fleming’s claim. I agree with Lord Neuberger, for the reasons he gives, that the Commissioner’s appeal in relation to Cond Nast’s claim should also be dismissed. 2. As Lord Walker has explained, claims for overpayment of output tax and previously unclaimed deduction of input tax are provided for by section 80 of the Value Added Tax Act 1994 and regulation 29 of the Value Added Tax Regulations 1995 (SI 1995/2518). As originally enacted, section 80 provided that no amount paid by way of ...
Tag this Judgment!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 : Oct-29-2008
LORD HOFFMANN My Lords, 1. At common law a lease is a contract between landlord and tenant which, if the landlord himself has or acquires an estate in the land, vests a leasehold estate in the tenant. The lease will ordinarily contain covenants to be performed by the tenant during the term of the lease and (in the absence of express contrary provision) these covenants mean what they say. A tenant who has covenanted to pay the rent during the term is liable to pay the rent during the term, whether or not he has assigned the leasehold estate to someone else. 2. This rule was changed by section 5(2) of the Landlord and Tenant (Covenants) Act 1995, which provides that if a tenant assigns the demised premises, he is released from his covenants. But the change applies only to tenancies granted after the Act came into force on 1 January 1996. The common law continues to apply to earlier tenancies, but subject to restrictions contained in sections 17 to 20. For present purposes, the relevant r...
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
Decided on : Dec-10-2008
LORD SCOTT OF FOSCOTE My Lords, 1. I have had the advantage of reading in draft the opinions on this appeal of my noble and learned friends Lord Rodger of Earlsferry and Baroness Hale of Richmond and am in full agreement that, for the reasons they give, this appeal should be dismissed. There are two matters, however, on which I want to add a few words of my own. In doing so I gratefully adopt and need not repeat Baroness Hale’s outline of the facts and of the relevant legislative background to the issues. 2. The first matter on which I want to comment is the locus standi of the respondent, the adult daughter of Mrs Savage, the deceased, to have instituted the action that has led to this appeal. Following Mrs Savage’s self-inflicted death, an inquest was held into the causes and circumstances of her death. The inquest was held in public, the investigation by the coroner into the circumstances and causes of the death was a full one - no one has suggested that it was in any re...
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 : Customs Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal CESTAT Calcutta
Decided on : Mar-07-2008
1. Heard both sides in respect of MA & Appeal filed by the applicant/appellant Commissioner and the Appeal filed by the appellant importer.2. In the Miscellaneous Application, it has been stated by the applicant Commissioner that the submission made by the appellant importers before the Tribunal regarding non-drawal of samples by Customs officials, is not true and factually correct and that the appellant importers have misled the Hon'ble CESTAT to get a favourable Stay Order. He further states that the samples were drawn in presence of the authorised CHA of the appellants and forwarded to the Assistant Drug Controller, which was duly acknowledged by him. He has also stated that in respect of importation of drugs it is a mandatory and statutory obligation on the part of Customs Authorities to ascertain as to whether the drugs under import comply with the standards laid down in the provisions of Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940. No clearance is allowed until and unless that procedure i...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Himachal Pradesh
Decided on : Mar-31-2008
Reported in : 2008(1)ShimLC505
Rajiv Sharma, J.1. A challenge has been laid to the orders passed by the Financial Commissioner (Revenue) in case No. 122/82. 123/82 (Revision) dated 15.10.1998. The brief facts necessary for the adjudication of this petition are that the petitioner-company is incorporated under the Companies Act. It is carrying on the business of manufacture and sale of Indian made foreign liquor, beer, break-fast food and food products etc. The assessing authority had passed the assessment order for the assessment year 1968-69. The assessing authority had allowed exemption under Section 41(A)(ii) of the H.P. General Sales Tax Act, 1968 for the sales of goods made in the course of export out of the territory of India. The assessing authority passed an order for the assessment year 1969-70 (Remand case) on 19.1.1976. The company preferred an appeal before the appellate authority. The appellate authority passed the order on 22.4.1977.2. Thereafter on remand, fresh order was passed by the assessing autho...
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