Tag: Child Support

Giltinane v Child Support Agency: FD 9 Mar 2006

The applicant sought to appeal against a liability order out of time.
Held: The time limit for appeals was not extendable. However the magistrates finding had been based upon misleading evidence supplied by the Agency. Where as here there was a risk of a miscarriage of justice, it was open to the claimant to seek a judicial review of the magistrates’ decision. If there was no other way of providing justice a review would be granted. The decision was reviewed.

Munby J
Times 07-Apr-2006
England and Wales

Child Support, Judicial Review

Updated: 06 December 2021; Ref: scu.240156

Farley v Child Support Agency and Another; Farley v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (No. 2): HL 28 Jun 2006

Magistrates were wrong to think they had a discretion to look at the validity of a liability assessment under child support legislation. The Act gave the payer alternative avenues of appeal, and therefore the Act should be read as it stated and the magistrates had no such jurisdiction. ‘section 33(4) precludes the justices from investigating whether a maintenance assessment, or maintenance calculation in the current terminology, is a nullity. ‘
Lord Nicholls said: ‘The need for a strict approach to the interpretation of an ouster provision . . was famously confirmed in the leading case of Anisminic . . This strict approach, however, is not appropriate if an effective means of challenging the validity of a maintenance assessment is provided elsewhere. Then section 33(4) is not an ouster provision. Rather, it is part of a statutory scheme which allocates jurisdiction to determine the validity of an assessment and decide whether the defendant is a ‘liable person’ to a court other than the magistrates’ court.’ and ‘This statute introduced a new child maintenance scheme. The scheme was intended to provide an effective, cheap and speedy means to enforce parental support obligations. Another aim, of considerable importance, was to reduce dependence on social security and the cost to the tax payer.’

Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead, Lord Hope of Craighead, Lord Hutton, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe, Lord Mance
[2006] UKHL 31, Times 30-Jun-2006, [2006] Fam Law 735, [2006] 3 All ER 935, [2006] 2 FCR 713, [2006] 1 WLR 1817
Bailii
Child Support Act 1991 33(4), Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Act 2000 , Child Support Act 1995
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Farley v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (No 2) CA 22-Jun-2005
The Court of Apeal had previously considered an appeal from the grant of a liability order made by magistrates. It had become clear that the order had been made without jurisdiction.
Held: The order must be set aside. The court had no . .
Cited – Farley v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and Another CA 25-Jan-2005
The Respondent had sought a liability order against the appellant, the non-resident parent in respect of child support maintenance arrears. The appellant had asked the magistrates to consider whether he was liable to pay child support maintenance, . .
At First Instance – Farley v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Admn 12-Jul-2004
The defendant and his wife were separated. The Child Support Agency assessed the contributions he was to make, and eventually pursued him in the magistrates court for arrears. The defendant argued that whilst the Act did prevent the magistrates . .
Cited – Secretary of State for Social Security v Shotton and Others QBD 30-Jan-1996
Magistrates have no power to question an assessment made by the Child Support Agency when making a deduction order. . .
Cited – Anisminic Ltd v Foreign Compensation Commission HL 17-Dec-1968
There are no degrees of nullity
The plaintiffs had owned mining property in Egypt. Their interests were damaged and or sequestrated and they sought compensation from the Respondent Commission. The plaintiffs brought an action for the declaration rejecting their claims was a . .
Cited – Secretary of State for Social Security and Another v Harmon and Another CA 5-Jun-1998
. .

Cited by:
Cited – A, Regina (on The Application of) v B; Regina (A) v Director of Establishments of the Security Service SC 9-Dec-2009
B, a former senior member of the security services wished to publish his memoirs. He was under contractual and statutory obligations of confidentiality. He sought judicial review of a decision not to allow him to publish parts of the book, saying it . .
Cited – Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission v Gibbons; Same v Karoonian CA 30-Oct-2012
Non-resident parents in each case appealed against suspended orders of imprisonment for non-payment of child support. They argued that the procedures used were indistinguishable from those held to be human rights non-compliant in Mubarak.
Child Support, Magistrates

Leading Case

Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.242926

REW, Regina (on the Application of) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions: Admn 13 Jun 2008

The claimant sought permission to bring judicial review of decisions of the Child Support Agency. He said that his payments should have been reduced for a period when he was in receipt of job seeker’s allowance. A liability order had been made against him, but for a later period.
Held: Leave was refused. The admission that the liability order related to a different period meant that the decision to enforce the liability order was not reviewable. Nevertheless the court considered the responsibility of different sections of the same department to take account of decisions about the same person. The Agency said that by the time it became aware of the payment of benefits, the 1991 Act precluded it from making a re-assessment. This was correct.

Andrew Nichol QC J
[2008] EWHC 2120 (Admin)
Bailii
Child Support Act 1991 16 17
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Kerr v Department for Social Development (Northern Ireland) HL 6-May-2004
Wrongful Refusal of Benefits
The claimant was estranged from his family, but claimed re-imbursement of the expenses for his brother’s funeral. The respondent required him to establish that none of his siblings was in a better position than he to pay for the funeral, but he had . .
Cited – Hinchy v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions HL 3-Mar-2005
The applicant had been dependent upon income support, and had then come to receive Disability Living Allowance (DLA). She therefore received additional income support, but the office did not adjust that benefit down when her DLA stopped. The . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Child Support, Benefits

Leading Case

Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.276233

Delaney v Delaney: CA 22 May 1990

The court made an order for nominal periodical payments for children whose mother was receiving social security benefits. Nourse LJ said: ‘Whilst this court deprecates any notion that a former husband and extant father may slough off the tight skin of familial responsibility and may slither away and lose himself in the greener grass on the other side, nonetheless this court has proclaimed and will proclaim that it looks to the realities of the real world in which we live, and among the realities of life is that there is a life after divorce. The respondent husband is entitled to order his life in such a way as will hold in reasonable balance the responsibilities to his existing family which he carries into his new life, as well as his proper aspirations for that new future.’

Nourse LJ
[1990] 2 FLR 457, [1990] EWCA Civ 14, [1991] FCR 161
Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Secretary of State for Work and Pensions v Kehoe CA 5-Mar-2004
The claimant had applied to the Child Support Agncy for maintenance. They failed utterly to obtain payment, and she complained now that she was denied the opportunity by the 1991 Act to take court proceedings herself.
Held: The denial of . .
Cited – Kehoe, Regina (on the Application of) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions HL 14-Jul-2005
The applicant contended that the 1991 Act infringed her human rights in denying her access to court to obtain maintenance for her children.
Held: The applicant had no substantive right to take part in the enforcement process in domestic law . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Child Support

Leading Case

Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.194405