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 underlying events did not mean that the respondent’s behaviour did not come within the section. An order was granted, save that he could proceed with the first action provided an advocate with higher court rights of audience so advises and only if and so long as such an advocate continues to represent him in the conduct of the claim.

Judges:

Auld LJ, Pitchers J

Citations:

[2004] EWHC 1246 (Admin)

Links:

Bailii

Statutes:

Supreme Court Act 1981 42

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

CitedRe Chaffers, ex parte Attorney General 1897
Wright J said: ‘The consideration of whether a person has habitually and persistently instigated vexatious legal proceedings without any reasonable ground does not depend on a minute examination of whether in each particular action there was a . .
CitedAttorney General v Vernazza HL 1960
Vernazza was a vexatious litigant. The Attorney-General obtained an order pursuant to an Act which gave the court power to prohibit such a litigant instituting proceedings without leave. Vernazza appealed. Between the making of the original order . .
CitedBhamjee v Forsdick and Others (No 2) CA 25-Jul-2003
The Court set out the range of remedies available to protect court processes from abuse by litigants who persist in making applications totally devoid of merit. The courts are facing very serious contemporary problems created by the activities of . .
CitedAttorney General v Jones CA 1990
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 . .
CitedAttorney-General v Barker CA 16-Feb-2000
An order that someone be denied access to the courts save with consent of a judge was a challenge to that individual’s constitutional rights, and should only be made if the statutory pre-conditions are fulfilled. It had to be shown that the litigant . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Litigation Practice

Updated: 04 June 2022; Ref: scu.197833