costs

“Law is no trade, briefs no merchandise”

27 August 2013 by David Hart KC

In Re Rameshwar Prasad Goyal, Advocate, Supreme Court of India, 22 August 2013, read judgment

For the moment, at least, the idea of Stobart-law, supermarket-law, or call-centre-law as the solution to the increasing cost of criminal justice seems to be on hold. But this broadside from the Indian Supreme Court (including my title) helpfully reminds us that the relationship between judges, advocates and their clients fits with difficulty into the bilateral model of most of the entirely commercialised world. The advocate owes a more complex set of duties to the court as well as to his or her client than are typically found in a haulage contract.

Shri Rameshwar Prasad Goyal, Advocate-on-Record or AOR in this case, is, according to Indian court statistics, a very busy man. He was acting  in 1678 cases in 2010, 1423 cases in 2011, and 1489 cases in 2012. But he has never actually appeared in court on behalf of his clients. Indeed a request from the Court in the present case for him to appear to explain himself was refused – try that in the High Court in the UK. It did not go down well in New Delhi either. The Court, having chucked out his hapless client’s application, declared that Goyal was guilty of conduct unbecoming an advocate, and told him that if he did not do better over the next year (i.e. turn up to court for his clients) he would get struck off.

The underlying facts show the dangers of allowing all of law to be run completely on business lines. Goyal had found an excellent and cost-efficient business niche. But as the Court explained

The  UK system still has to crack the costs of litigation, given the  conflicting difficulties of litigating properly and cost-efficiently for clients, but it is at least working on that hard, But we do seem to have sorted the time it takes to get to answer problems which we set our judges. Timing has been ruthlessly policed by our courts in recent years, so that you need a pretty good excuse for doing something late or slowly. So, unlike the gloomy picture presented by the Indian Supreme Court, most people know whether they have won or lost before they die – so astrologers are not generally necessary.

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Related posts:

• Legal Aid Outcry, Political Disasters and a Mau -Mau Settlement
• The CJEU on “prohibitively expensive” and the new protective costs order regime
• Costs budgets now with sharp teeth. If you want more than your budget, apply
• Electronic plagiarism? The dangers of the cut-and-paste
• Why we allow dissent – by our judges

Sparks fly in the Ukraine

4 July 2013 by Rosalind English

Kirovogradoblenergo, Pat v Ukraine (Application no. 35088/07) 27 June 2013 – read judgment 

Shortly after the break up of the Soviet Union, the Ukraine introduced an interesting piece of legislation called the Status of Judges Act.

Being a judge behind the Iron Curtain couldn’t have been much fun, and rendering the profession more attractive once society had opened up somewhat was probably one of the more pressing challenges facing the new regime. One of the chief provisions in the SoJA was to spare members of the judiciary from paying half their electricity bills. What this tells us about the status of judges before and shortly after the dissolution of communism is itself an interesting subject, but outside the scope of this post.
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Supreme Court – Measures against Iranian bank unlawful, and the secret hearing ruling

19 June 2013 by David Hart KC

Bank Mellat v HM Treasury [2013] UKSC 38 (CMP: see judgment) and 39 (main: see judgment)

Two sets of judgments today from a 9-judge Supreme Court in the Bank Mellat case. The first explains why the Court adopted a secret procedure in the absence of the Bank (i.e. a Closed Material Procedure) but added that the whole palaver in fact added nothing to their knowledge. The second concludes that financial restrictions imposed in 2009 on an Iranian Bank which effectively excluded it from the UK financial market were arbitrary and irrational and were also procedurally unfair. 

Costs budgets – now with sharp teeth. If you want more than your budget, apply.

17 June 2013 by David Hart KC

Elvanite Full Circle v. AMEC Earth & Environmental (UK) Ltd [2013] EWHC 1643 (TCC), Coulson J read judgment

The Jackson reforms, which are designed to stop lawyers spending too much of their clients’ or their opponents’ money, are still but young, and therefore not yielding much in the way of decided cases. But there were some pilot schemes which are very similar, and this case about one such scheme (in the Technology & Construction Court) is an interesting, and tough, example of why costs budgets must be taken seriously.

Elvanite claimed that AMEC had given them negligent planning advice about waste management. Coulson J dismissed the claim. AMEC sought and got their costs. But, from the judge’s judgment on costs, it seems unlikely that they will recover more than 50% of their actual costs. Why?

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Will the new criminal legal aid reforms breach the right to a fair trial?

16 May 2013 by Guest Contributor

One of the most contentious proposals in the Consultation Paper on the transforming legal aid is the removal of client choice in criminal cases. Under the proposals contracts for the provision of legal aid will be awarded to a limited number of firms in an area. The areas are similar to the existing CPS areas. The Green Paper anticipates that there will be four or five such providers in each area. Thus the county of Kent, for example, will have four or five providers in an area currently served by fifty or so legal aid firms. Each area will have a limited number providers that will offer it is argued economies of scale.

In order to ensure that this arrangement is viable the providers will be effectively guaranteed work by stripping the citizen of the right to choose a legal aid lawyer in criminal cases. Under the new scheme every time a person needs advice they will be allocated mechanically by the Legal Aid Agency to one of the new providers. It may not be the same firm the person has used before. The citizen will therefore not be able to build up a relationship with a solicitor. From a human rights perspective this, of course, begs the question would the removal of choice be compatible with the ECHR?

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Yes, come to the library! Browse and borrow, and help make sure it’ll still be here tomorrow…

2 May 2012 by Shaheen Rahman

“Yes, come to the library! Browse and borrow, and help make sure it’ll still be here tomorrow…” Thus concludes “Library poem”, penned by Children’s Laureate and Gruffalo creator Julia Donaldson, the latest high profile recruit to the campaign against planned library closures.

There have been a number of developments since we last blogged on this issue:

First, in R(Bailey And Others) V Brent London Borough Council & All Souls College (Interested Party)  & Ehrc (Intervener) [2011] Ewca Civ 1586, The appellants failed to overturn the dismissal of their application for judicial review of a local authority’s decision to close half its public libraries.  See previous post here. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal on every ground, noting that the local authority’s decision to reduce its expenditure on public services was primarily one for it to make as a democratically elected body.  Given the scale of the spending reductions required the decision was not unlawful.

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More cuts: Library closure challenge fails

20 October 2011 by Shaheen Rahman

Updated | Bailey & Others v London Borough of Brent Council [2011] EWHC 2572 (Admin) – Read judgment

Every Wednesday my daughter looks forward to the arrival of the mobile library at her nursery.  Two by two the children go into the little world of books and emerge holding a new story they have chosen for themselves. 

Not for long.  Despite the well-documented advantages of exposing children to the joys of reading at an early age – before the attractions of TV, video games and looting shops take hold – library services across the land are being targeted for cuts.

The duty to provide library services for children was one of the key arguments advanced by campaigners in Brent challenging the council’s decision to close 6 of its 12 libraries.  Reliance was placed upon section 7 of the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964.  This requires local authorities to provide a comprehensive and efficient library service.

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Courts still slow to interfere in spending cuts decisions

15 September 2011 by Alasdair Henderson

R (JG and MB ) v. Lancashire County Council [2011] EWHC 2295 (Admin) – read judgment here.

Public sector cuts are back in the news, with the trade unions warning of their plans to stage the biggest series of strikes in a generation.  However, attempts to take the fight against the cuts into the courts as well as onto the streets were dealt a serious blow recently, as the Administrative dismissed an application by two disabled women for judicial review of Lancashire County Council’s decision to significantly reduce their budget for adult social care services. 

This case provides a very helpful summary of the courts’ approach to public bodies’ equality duties (now the new general Public Sector Equality Duty in s.149 of the Equality Act 2010). It is also a reminder that the courts are reluctant to interfere with difficult social or economic decisions made by elected officials, as long as there has been proper consideration of the relevant factors, despite other recent cases where such decisions have been struck down.

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When public authorities must pay legal costs: Two important cases

3 August 2011 by Adam Wagner

G v E & Ors [2011] EWCA Civ 939 – Read judgment – 1COR’s Guy Mansfield QC appeared for the Respondent. He is not the author of this post.

Bahta & Ors, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department & Ors [2011] EWCA Civ 895 – Read judgment

The general rule in civil law cases is that the loser pays the winner’s legal costs, even if the case settles before trial. As with all general rules, there are plenty of exceptions, and many relate to public authorities. Two of those exceptions have just been chipped away at by the Court of Appeal.

Two important judgments increasing the likelihood that local authorities will have to pay out costs emerged the usual last-minute glut before the court term ended on Friday. The first concerned costs in the Court of Protection when an authority has unlawfully deprived a person of their liberty. The second was about costs in immigration judicial review claims which had settled following consent orders.

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Litigating equality: a costly business?

5 April 2011 by Isabel McArdle

Commission for Equality & Human Rights v Griffin, Lumby, Darby

[2011] EWHC 675 (Admin) Read judgment

The Commission for Equality & Human Rights has been ordered to pay costs of court proceedings to two members and a former member of the British National Party. Although the decision is a technical one relating only to costs of proceedings, it highlights the financial risks which must be borne by those seeking to police and enforce compliance with the requirements of human rights law.
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Expenses peer Taylor convicted, but will he be jailed?

26 January 2011 by Adam Wagner

Ex-Tory peer Lord Taylor of Warwick has become the first parliamentarian to be found guilty by a jury of making false parliamentary expenses claims. He now faces sentencing. Given the recent case of former MP David Chaytor, it seems unlikely that he will escape jail.

A jury at Southwark Crown Court found Taylor guilty of six counts of false accounting under section 17 of the Theft Act 1968, by a majority of 11 to 1. The expense at issue totalled £11,277. Mr Justice Saunders, who also sentenced Chaytor, presided over the trial.

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“Blackmail” costs system violated Daily Mirror’s freedom of expression rights in Naomi Campbell case

18 January 2011 by Adam Wagner

MGN Limited v The United Kingdom – (Application no. 39401/04) Read judgment / press release / our analysis

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the UK’s controversial no-win-no-fee costs system violated the Daily Mirror’s freedom of expression rights after it was forced to pay model Naomi Campbell’s legal fees after a 2004 House of Lords judgment.

The European Court attacked the present costs system, and in particular success fees, using the findings of the recent review by Lord Justice Jackson, which the government intends to mostly implement. It held that the costs system often amounted to the “blackmail” of defendants, and has had an unjustified chilling effect on the press.

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Family legal aid tender process was “unfair, unlawful and irrational”

30 September 2010 by Adam Wagner

Updated The High Court has ruled that the Legal Service Commission’s legal aid tender process was “unfair, unlawful and irrational”. The decision came in  a judicial review of the tender brought by the Law Society.

According to the Law Society’s press release:

The failure of the LSC to anticipate, let alone manage, the outcome of the process was the latest and perhaps most alarming of the LSC’s apparently haphazard attempts to reshape legal aid…

The LSC’s actions would have seen the number of offices where the public could get subsidised help with family cases drastically cut from 2400 to 1300.

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Increasing prison numbers could save money, says report

31 August 2010 by Adam Wagner

A new report from the think-tank Civitas argues that increasing community sentences and cutting prison numbers will lead to more crime and add to costs too.

This is contrary to the the view of the Justice Secretary Ken Clarke, who has argued recently that there is no link between the rising level of imprisonment and falling crime.

The report, Prison, Community Sentencing and Crime, is by Ken Pease, a professor at the Manchester Business School and a former Home Office criminologist. It does not present any significant new research; rather, it seeks to put the other side of the debate on prison numbers, in light of the “apparently concerted attempt to justify an increasing use of community sanctions in place of custody for convicted criminals”.

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Where will £2bn of Ministry of Justice cuts come from? [Updated]

11 August 2010 by Adam Wagner

Ken Clarke

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is to cut £2bn from its £9bn or so budget. But where will this 20% cut come from?

Kenneth Clarke’s MoJ are said to have got in early in agreeing spending reduction targets with the Treasury, and yesterday it was reported by the Public and Commercial Services Union that senior staff were informed by email that the cuts will amount to around £2bn of the overall budget. The Union suspect that around 15,000 of the MoJ’s 80,000 staff may have to be axed.

However the MoJ makes the cuts, a reduction of around 20% is likely to have severe effects on access to and provision of justice in the United Kingdom. Various MoJ-funded bodies have already been lining up to explain why their departments could not survive on much less. The criminal legal aid system has long been said to be in crisis, the President of the Family Division indicated last week that the child protection system is in grave danger of imploding, and the Chief Executive of the Supreme Court has said the cuts could cripple the new court.

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