A prisoner wishing to appear at court in civil proceedings needed under the Act to apply for his own production to court, and to make arrangement for payment of the costs of being produced at court.
Held: A Legislature could so provide even though it interfered with the right of access to the courts.
Courts should be very reluctant to take cases which appeared to be merely hypothetical.
Lord Goff said: ‘It is well established that this House does not decide hypothetical questions. If the House were to do so, any conclusion, and the accompanying reasons, could in their turn constitute no more than obiter dicta expressed without the assistance of a concrete factual situation, and would not constitute a binding precedent for the future’.
Judges:
Lord Goff
Citations:
Gazette 17-Mar-1993, [1993] 1 WLR 115, [1993] 1 All ER 574
Statutes:
Criminal Justice Act 1961 29(1)
Cited by:
Cited – Regina (W) v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis and Another CA 11-May-2006
The Commissioner appealed against a declaration that an authorisation given for creation of a dispersal area was unlawful.
Held: The proceedings appeared at first to be merely hypothetical, but the issue as to whether a police officer had use . .
Cited – AVS v A NHS Foundation Trust and Another CA 17-Jan-2011
The claimant contracted sporadic Creutzfeldt Jakob’s Disease disease. He executed a Lasting Power of Attorney in favour of his brother, expressing to him that he should do whatever was possible to protract his life. The brother now sought treatment . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Litigation Practice, Prisons
Updated: 10 April 2022; Ref: scu.87991
