A section 42 order embraced applications to or in the Court of Appeal as well as below. A person against whom a vexatious litigant order was sought could not seek to argue anew the findings which had already been made against him by the courts in which he had been litigating. In dealing with an application under the section it is not the court’s task to revisit and reconsider the merits of the individual underlying actions upon which the Attorney General relies. The court is entitled to go by the conclusions of the judges who determined earlier proceedings.
Lord Donaldson of Lymington MR: ‘The fifth and last issue of law arose out of Mr Jones’ wish to challenge the conclusion of various judges in the underlying proceedings that his conduct in those particular proceedings had been vexatious or had involved an abuse of the process of the court. We ruled that he was not free to do so. If any such conclusion was, or was thought by Mr Jones to be, erroneous, the remedy was to appeal in those proceedings or, where it was said that the judgment was vitiated by the fraud of other parties, to take appropriate steps to have the judgment set aside. But if that was not done, the decision must stand and is capable of forming the basis for the court being satisfied upon an application under section 42 that Mr Jones had habitually and persistently and without any reasonable ground acted in the manner referred to in subsection (1)(a) and/or (b).’
Judges:
Lord Donaldson of Lymington MR
Citations:
[1990] 1 WLR 859
Statutes:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – HM Attorney General v Pepin Admn 27-May-2004
Civil proceedings order. The defendant had commenced ten sets of proceedings which the court held amounted to serial and repeated litigation of the same points.
Held: The fact that new details had emerged which might throw new light on the . .
Cited – HM Attorney General v Foden Admn 7-Apr-2005
Application for Civil Proceedings Order.
Held: ‘This defendant has become a compulsive litigant who has lost touch with reality. Her remorseless pursuit of litigation is wholly without merit, is clearly vexatious and has perpetrated a waste of . .
Cited – Attorney General v Perotti Admn 10-May-2006
The respondent had been subject first to a Grepe v Loam order and then to an extended civil restraint order. The court had still faced many hopeless applications. An order was now sought that any future application for permission to appeal be heard . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Litigation Practice
Updated: 20 August 2022; Ref: scu.197959