The deceased’s father sought an order prohibiting the coroner from conducting an inquest on his dead daughter. Among his grounds was that the coroner might appear to be biased because of an outstanding application for costs against the coroner arising out of an earlier application for judicial review reversing the Divisional Court and held that the coroner did have jurisdiction to conduct an inquest even though the deceased had died abroad.
Held: There was no criticism of the coroner in those proceedings, and no suggestion of misconduct: ‘Mr Simon Brown submitted that it is singularly unusual for any order for costs to be made against a public judicial body in the absence of any misconduct on its part, even if that body appears at the proceedings to resist the application. Where the body does not appear at the proceedings to resist the application then in Mr Simon Brown’s experience, he had never known of an order for costs being made against the judicial body in question in the absence of misconduct.’ The court approved this understanding.
Judges:
Webster J
Citations:
[1985] 149 JP 97, [1985] QB 1096, [1985] 2 WLR 332, [1985] 129 SJ 131, [1985] 1 All ER 100
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Regina on the Application of Davies (No 2) v HM Deputy Coroner for Birmingham CA 27-Feb-2004
The claimant appealed against a costs order. She had previously appealed against an order of the High Court on her application for judicial review of the inquest held by the respondent.
Held: The coroner, and others in a similar position . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Coroners, Costs
Updated: 29 April 2022; Ref: scu.194539