The AG sought a civil proceedings order against the respondent.
Held: Before the court can make an order under the section it must be satisfied that the statutory precondition of an order is fulfilled, namely that the person against whom the order is sought has habitually and persistently and without any reasonable ground instituted vexatious civil proceedings or made vexatious applications whether in the High Court or any inferior court and whether against the same person or against different persons.
‘I am satisfied on the facts adduced in evidence before us that Mr Barker has instituted vexatious civil proceedings. ‘Vexatious’ is a familiar term in legal parlance. The hallmark of a vexatious proceeding is in my judgment that it has little or no basis in law (or at least no discernible basis); that whatever the intention of the proceeding may be, its effect is to subject the defendant to inconvenience, harassment and expense out of all proportion to any gain likely to accrue to the claimant; and that it involves an abuse of the process of the court, meaning by that a use of the court process for a purpose or in a way which is significantly different from the ordinary and proper use of the court process.’
However, these proceedings appeared to have brought a reality to the defendant, and the court vbeing satisfied that no further proceedings were in view, declined the request to make an order.
Judges:
Lord Bingham of Cornhill LCJ, Klevan J
Citations:
[2000] EWHC 453 (Admin), [2000] 2 FCR 1, [2000] Fam Law 400, [2000] 1 FLR 759
Links:
Statutes:
Cited by:
Cited – Attorney-General v Covey; Attorney-General v Matthews CA 19-Feb-2001
Appeals were made against orders under s42 of the 1981 Act restraining the appellants from commencing proceedings without consent of the court.
Held: The non-disclosure of a bench memorandum was the usual practice internationally, and not a . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Litigation Practice
Updated: 27 August 2022; Ref: scu.426517