The court considered an application to quash an order requiring the attendance of the claimant to give evidence: ‘Normally this court will not entertain an application for a quashing order in relation to a decision made in a magistrates’ court where the proceedings in that court are not complete. In R v Rochford Justices ex-parte Buck (1978) 68 Cr App R 114 it was said that there is no jurisdiction to do so, and a distinction was drawn between an order to direct a magistrate to hear and determine a matter, which can be obtained if he refuses to do so, and an order, as Cockburn CJ put it in Carden (1879) 5 QBD 1 at 5, ‘to control the magistrate in the conduct of the case or to prescribe to him the evidence which he shall receive or reject.’ Such control, it was said, could only be exercised when the case was at an end. In Buck the prosecution had sought to introduce certain evidence which the justices ruled inadmissible. The matter was then adjourned to enable the prosecution to test the ruling in the Divisional Court. When giving the judgment in this court Lord Widgery CJ said that the decision to adjourn was wrong. The prosecution were asking this court to do what Cockburn CJ had said could not be done, that is to say to exercise a measure of control over the way the magistrates try the case. At page 118 he said: ‘The obligation of this Court to keep out of the way until the magistrate has finished his determination seems to me to be a principle properly to be applied both to summary trial and to committal proceedings.
Accordingly, I would be prepared to dispose of this matter on the first argued point, namely, that there was no jurisdiction in this Court to interfere with the justices’ decision, that not having been reached by termination of the proceedings below.’
Judges:
Kennedy LJ
Citations:
[2003] EWHC 2660 (Admin)
Links:
Citing:
Cited – Carden 1879
Whilst an order may be available to oblige a magistrate to hear and determine a matter properly within his jurisdiction, an order will not be available which seeks ‘to control the magistrate in the conduct of the case or to prescribe to him the . .
Cited – Regina v Rochford Justices ex parte Buck 1978
The court considered the correctness of the Divisional Court interfering in interlocutory orders in magistrates court proceedings: ‘The obligation of this Court to keep out of the way until the magistrate has finished his determination seems to me . .
Cited by:
Cited – Cunliffe, Regina (on the Application of) v West London Magistrates’ Court Admn 6-Jul-2006
The claimant was an employee of the company manufacturing alcohol measuring devices. He sought judicial review of decisions by magistrates to require him to attend court to give evidence which would require him to breach obligations of confidence he . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Road Traffic
Updated: 08 June 2022; Ref: scu.188319