Court : House of Lords
LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL My Lords, 1. I have had the benefit of reading in draft the opinion of my noble and learned friend Baroness Hale of Richmond. I am in complete agreement with it, and would, for the reasons which she gives, allow the Council’s appeal. LORD SCOTT OF FOSCOTE My Lords, 2. I have had the advantage of reading in draft the opinion of my noble and learned friend Baroness Hale of Richmond and, for the reasons she gives, with which I am in full agreement, I too would allow this appeal. BARONESS HALE OF RICHMOND My Lords, 3. The issue before us is whether a local social services authority is obliged, under section 21(1)(a) of the National Assistance Act 1948, to arrange (and pay for) residential accommodation for a person subject to immigration control who is HIV positive but whose only needs, other than for a home and subsistence, are for medication prescribed by his doctor and a refrigerator in which to keep it. The answer to that issue turns on the meaning of the...
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LORD DUNEDIN (after stating the facts). My Lords, I shall mention first, in order to put it aside, one argument put forward by the respondents. It was that the Crown should pay a reasonable sum for use and occupation of the premises upon the ground of an implied contract, the entry of the Crown to the premises having been permitted by the Receiver and taken by the Crown in virtue of the Receiver's permission. The simple answer to this argument is that the facts as above recited do not permit of its application. In any case of implied contract there must be implied assent to a contract on both sides. Here there was no such assent. There was no room for doubt as to each party's position. The Crown took as a right, basing that right specifically on the Defence of the Realm Act. The Receiver did not offer physical resistance to the taking, and was content to facilitate the taking. He emphatically reserved his rights, and gave clear notice that he maintained that the Crown was wrong in its ...
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LORD NICHOLLS OF BIRKENHEAD My Lords, 1. English courts have power to make coercive orders, prohibitory and mandatory, against ministers of the Crown. This was decided authoritatively by your Lordships' House in M v Home Office [1994] 1 AC 377. The question raised by this appeal is whether, in the context of judicial review proceedings, Scottish courts have similar jurisdiction in respect of Scottish Ministers, that is, members of the Scottish Executive. 2. It would be surprising if this were not so. But on this appeal the Scottish Ministers contend that the Crown Proceedings Act 1947 leads inescapably to the opposite conclusion. The proceedings 3. The proceedings have an unusual history. For present purposes the essential facts are simple indeed. Scott Davidson spent 18 months in Barlinnie Prison, Glasgow, between April 2001 and August 2002. Initially he was there on remand and later as a convicted prisoner. While there he complained to the prison governor about prison conditions: gro...
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LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL My Lords, 1. These appeals concern the procedure to be followed by the Parole Board when a determinate sentence prisoner, released on licence, seeks to resist subsequent revocation of his licence. The appellants contend that such a prisoner should be offered an oral hearing at which the prisoner can appear and, either on his own behalf or through a legal representative, present his case, unless the prisoner chooses to forgo such a hearing. They base their argument on the common law and on articles 5 and 6 of the European Convention, relying on both the criminal and civil limbs of article 6. The respondent Parole Board accepts that in resolving challenges to revocation of their licences by determinate sentence prisoners it is under a public law duty to act in a procedurally fair manner. It accepts that in some cases, as where there is a disputed issue of fact material to the outcome, procedural fairness may require it to hold an oral hearing at which the issue m...
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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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LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL My Lords, 1. These appeals, heard together, raise important and difficult questions concerning the definition and ingredients, today, of the common law crime of causing a public nuisance. The appellants contend that, as applied in their cases, the offence is too imprecisely defined, and the courts' interpretation of it too uncertain and unpredictable, to satisfy the requirements either of the common law or of the European Convention on Human Rights. A question also arises on the mens rea which must be proved to establish the offence. 2. The facts of the two cases are quite different. Mr Rimmington was charged in an indictment containing a single count of public nuisance, contrary to common law. The particulars were that he "between the 25th day of May 1992 and the 13th day of June 2001, caused a nuisance to the public, namely by sending 538 separate postal packages, as detailed in the schedule €, containing racially offensive material to members of the pu...
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LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL My Lords, 1. The question in this appeal is whether, as held by the Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland (Carswell LCJ, Campbell LJ and Sir John MacDermott), it was beyond the power of the Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (now the Police Service of Northern Ireland) to make the directions contained in paragraphs 9(2), (3), (4) and (5) of Force Order No 10/2001 dated 8 February 2001. For the reasons given by my noble and learned friend Lord Hutton (whose rehearsal of the facts and the relevant legislation I gratefully adopt), and in agreement with all my noble and learned friends, I conclude that it was not. 2. Section 36 of the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 1998 required the Secretary of State to exercise his powers under the Act in such manner and to such extent as appeared to him best calculated to promote the efficiency and effectiveness of the Northern Ireland Police Service. Subject to the Act, it was left to him to judge whether and how to ...
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Lord Hailsham of St. Marylebone my lords, We are all agreed that this appeal from decisions of Master Waldman and Sheen J. refusing leave to defend under RSC 0.14 fails on the facts for the reasons given by my noble and learned friends to which personally I have nothing to add. The appellants have failed to raise a triable issue. Nevertheless, though they arrive in your Lordships' House by an unusual route, the proceedings do raise an interesting and important general question of principle relating to the extent and nature of the law of frustration which has long been debated and which, since the matter has reached this stage and has been fully argued, should now be decided by your Lordships' House. This question is the applicability of the law of frustration to leases and agreements for a lease. The question is discussed at length in Cricklewood Property and Investment Trust Ltd. v. Leightons Investment Trust Ltd. [1945] A.C. 221 by the decision of which in the Court of Appeal, Master...
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LORD REID There are before your Lordships four appeals by associated companies in actions brought by them against the Lord Advocate under the Crown Suits Act, 1857. When war broke out with Japan, these companies owned extensive properties in Burma, including oil wells, pipe lines, refineries and other buildings and stocks of petroleum and other goods. When the Japanese invaded Burma, these were destroyed by order of the British Government. The appellants claim that they are entitled to payment of such sum as will make good to the pursuers the damage sustained by them as a result of that destruction. The Lord Ordinary, Lord Kilbrandon, repelled pleas that the pursuers' averments are irrelevant and allowed proof before answer. The First Division by interlocutors of 14th March 1963 sustained the pleas to relevancy and dismissed the actions. The appellants now seek to have the interlocutors of the Lord Ordinary restored. The pursuers aver that, in accordance with directives from His Majest...
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LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL My Lords, 1. Mr Caldarelli challenges a decision of the Queen’s Bench Divisional Court (Laws LJ and Tomlinson J: [2007] EWHC 1624 (Admin), [2008] 1 WLR 31) upholding an order that he be surrendered pursuant to a European arrest warrant issued on 6 October 2006 by the Court of Naples. He complains that the warrant is bad because it seeks his surrender as an accused person and not (as he claims to be) a convicted person. The Divisional Court has neatly expressed the point to be decided in its certified question: “Where a fugitive has been convicted and sentenced in his absence in the requesting state, but the conviction and sentence are neither final nor enforceable, may his case be treated as an accusation case even though he does not enjoy an unqualified right to a retrial on the merits?” 2. The appellant is said to have been party to the unlawful smuggling of drugs into a Naples prison in which he was incarcerated at the time. On 6 October 20...
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