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These cases are from the lawindexpro database. They are now being transferred to the swarb.co.uk website in a better form. As a case is published there, an entry here will link to it. The swarb.co.uk site includes many later cases.  














Constitutional - From: 1992 To: 1992

This page lists 11 cases, and was prepared on 20 May 2019.

 
Regina v Secretary of State for the Home Department: Ex parte Muboyayi [1992] 2 QB 244
1992
CA
Lord Donaldson of Lyminton MR
Constitutional
Lord Donaldson of Lyminton MR said: "Chapters 39 and 40 of Magna Carta provide:
No freeman shall be arrested or imprisoned or disseised or outlawed or exiled or in any way destroyed, neither will we set forth against him or send against him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers and by the law of the land.
To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay right or justice.
The duty of the courts is to uphold this classic statement of the rule of law and if, in particular circumstances, a writ of habeas corpus is the appropriate procedure for doing so, it is wholly immaterial that the practical effect may be the same as enjoining the Crown."
and "The great writ of habeas corpus has over the centuries been a flexible remedy adaptable to changing circumstances."
Magna Carta


 
 Regina v Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of Great Britain and the Commonwealth, Ex parte Wachmann; 1992 - [1992] 1 WLR 1036

 
 Lennox Phillip and Others v Director of Public Prosecutions of Trinidad and Tobago and Another; Same vCommissioners of Prisons; PC 19-Feb-1992 - Gazette, 19 February 1992; [1992] 1 AC 545; [1992] 2 WLR 211
 
Smithfield Foods Ltd v Attorney-General of Barbados Gazette, 11 March 1992
11 Mar 1992
PC

Constitutional
There is no appeal to the Privy Council for lack of adequate redress in the local courts where a local appeal was still available to the applicant.


 
 Regina v Ali, Regina v Rasool (Mauritius); PC 25-Mar-1992 - Gazette, 25 March 1992
 
Ponsamy Poongavanam v Regina
6 Apr 1992
PC
Lord Goff of Chieveley
Human Rights, Criminal Practice, Commonwealth, Constitutional
(Mauritius) The defendant appealed conviction on the ground that the jury had been all male. Women being effectively excluded from jury service in Mauritius. The question was whether, having regard to the composition of the jury, the appellant's trial violated a provision in the Constitution of Mauritius. Held: There was no basis for concluding that the justification for the means of selecting juries no longer had an objective justification. The board referred to the "fair cross-section" requirement adopted in the American case law. Whether such a broad principle can be derived from the Constitution of Mauritius depends upon the construction of the word "impartial". The Constitution was concerned with the actual tribunal by which the case is tried and with the impartiality of that tribunal. The American principle was directed to the representative character of the jury list. "Whether the jurisprudence on Article 6(1) of the European Convention of Human Rights is likely to develop in that direction, is very difficult to foresee; but any such development would require a substantial piece of creative interpretation which has the effect of expanding the meaning of the words of Article 6(1) beyond their ordinary meaning."
1 Citers


 
Regina v Greenaway Unreported, 25 June 1992
25 Jun 1992
CC
Buckley J
Crime, Constitutional
(Central Criminal Court) The defendant Member of Parliament had faced charges of accepting bribes in return for advancing the interests of a commercial company. Held: The charges were dismissed on the request of the prosecution after a separate trial in which the persons accused of having bribed him had been acquitted. Buckley J had earlier ruled that an MP could be charged with the common law offence of bribery.
It had been common ground that in general, members of Parliament are subject to the criminal law and that it would be "unacceptable" for a member of Parliament to be immune from prosecution in the courts of law when there was prima facie evidence of corruption. Without it being suggested that he was questioning or impeaching words spoken in Parliament, he adopted the observations of Lord Salmon that: "To my mind equality before the law is one of the pillars of freedom. To say that immunity from criminal proceedings against . . any member of Parliament who accepts the bribe, stems from the Bill of Rights is possibly a serious mistake . . (the Bill of Rights) is a charter for freedom of speech in the House. It is not a charter for corruption . . the crime of corruption is complete when the bribe is offered or given or solicited and taken."
1 Citers


 
Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v Casey (1992) 505 U.S. 833
29 Jun 1992

Justices O'Connor, Kennedy and Souter J.J
Crime, Constitutional
(Supreme Court of the USA) The Court discussed the grounds upon which it would depart from precedent and why it would not overrule its equally controversial decision on abortion in Roe v. Wade. Held: "no judicial system could do society's work if it eyed each issue afresh in every case that raised it . . . Indeed, the very concept of the rule of law underlying our own Constitution requires such continuity over time that a respect for precedent is, by definition, indispensable."
1 Citers

[ LII ]
 
Woolwich Equitable Building Society v Inland Revenue Commissioners (2) [1993] AC 70; [1992] 3 All ER 737; (1992) 3 WLR 366; [1992] UKHL TC - 65 - 265
20 Jul 1992
HL
Lord Goff of Chieveley, Lord Browne-Wilkinson, Lord Slynn of Hadley; Lord Keith of Kinkel and Lord Jauncey of Tullichettle dissenting
Taxes Management, Constitutional
The society had set out to assert that regulations were unlawful in creating a double taxation. It paid money on account of the tax demanded. It won and recovered the sums paid, but the revenue refused to pay any interest accrued on the sums paid. The Society sought to challenge the decision by judicial review. Held: At common law taxes exacted ultra vires were recoverable as of right, without the need to invoke a mistake of law by the payer. "The justice underlying Woolwich's submission is, I consider, plain to see. Take the present case. The revenue has made an unlawful demand for tax. The taxpayer is convinced that the demand is unlawful, and has to decide what to do. It is faced with the revenue, armed with the coercive power of the state, including what is in practice a power to charge interest which is penal in its effect. In addition, being a reputable society which alone among many building societies is challenging the lawfulness of the demand, it understandably fears damage to its reputation if it does not pay. So it decides to pay first, asserting that it will challenge the lawfulness of the demand in litigation. Now, Woolwich having won that litigation, the revenue asserts that it was never under any obligation to repay the money, and that it in fact repaid it only as a matter of grace. There being no applicable statute to regulate the position, the revenue has to maintain this position at common law. Stated in this stark form, the revenue's position appears to me, as a matter of common justice, to be unsustainable; and the injustice is rendered worse by the fact that it involves, as Nolan J. pointed out [1989] 1 W.L.R. 137, 140, the revenue having the benefit of a massive interest-free loan as the fruit of its unlawful action. I turn then from the particular to the general. Take any tax or duty paid by the citizen pursuant to an unlawful demand. Common justice seems to require that tax be repaid, unless special circumstances or some principle of policy require otherwise; prima facie, the taxpayer should be entitled to repayment as of right." and "the retention by the state of taxes unlawfully exacted is particularly obnoxious, because it is one of the most fundamental principles of our law – enshrined in a famous constitutional document, the Bill of Rights 1688 – that taxes should not be levied without the authority of Parliament; and full effect can only be given to that principle if the return of taxes exacted under an unlawful demand can be enforced as a matter of right. The second is that, when the revenue makes a demand for tax, that demand is implicitly backed by the coercive powers of the state and may well entail (as in the present case) unpleasant economic and social consequences if the taxpayer does not pay. In any event, it seems strange to penalise the good citizen, whose natural instinct is to trust the revenue and pay taxes when they are demanded of him."
Lord Slynn observed: "I do not consider that the fact that Parliament has legislated extensively in this area means that no principle of recovery at common law can or should at this stage of the development of the law be found to exist. If the principle does exist that tax paid on a demand from the Crown when the tax was the subject of an ultra vires demand can be recovered as money had and received then, in my view, it is for the courts to declare it. In so doing they do not usurp the legislative function. I regard the proper approach as the converse. If the legislature finds that limitations on the common law principle are needed for reasons of policy or good administration then they can be adopted by legislation . ."
Lord Goff considered whether, by changing the common law judges would be overstepping the boundary which separates legitimate development of the law from judicial legislation said: "I feel bound however to say that, although I am well aware of the existence of the boundary, I am never quite sure where to find it. Its position seems to vary from case to case. Indeed, if it were to be as firmly and clearly drawn as some of our mentors would wish, I cannot help feeling that a number of leading cases in your Lordships' House would never have been decided the way they were."
HL Income Tax - Building Society - Tax on interest and dividends - Without prejudice payments of tax whilst challenging vires of the Income Tax (Building Societies) Regulations 1986 - Regulations later declared ultra vires - Tax repaid - Whether interest payable for periods between payments of tax and that decision - Supreme Court Act 1981, 5 35A
Taxes Management Act 1970 33 - Bill of Rights 1688 - Income Tax (Building Societies) Regulations 1986
1 Cites

1 Citers

[ Bailii ]

 
 Government of Mauritius v Union Flacq Sugar Estates Co Ltd; Same v Medine Shares Holding Co; PC 16-Sep-1992 - Gazette, 16 September 1992; [1992] 1 WLR 903; (1993) 109 LQR 202

 
 Pepper (Inspector of Taxes) v Hart; HL 26-Nov-1992 - [1992] 3 WLR 1032; [1993] AC 593; [1993] 1 All ER 42; [1992] UKHL 3
 
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