The applicant challenged the prodecures for deciding her appeal against the council’s refusal to pay backdated housing benefits. She complained that the availability of judicial review of the decision was not adequate.
Held: The system did not provide a fair system. The Board was not itself independent of the Council whose decision it looked at since members of the panel were representatives of the bodies who would pay the benefits, and the judicial review proceedings would be unable to look again at the findings of fact, and would therefore be an inadequate form of appeal: ‘While the High Court had the power to quash the decision if it considered, among other things, that there was no evidence to support the HBRB’s factual findings, or that its findings were plainly untenable, or that the HBRB had misunderstood or been ignorant of an established and relevant fact, it did not have jurisdiction to rehear the evidence or substitute its own views as to the applicant’s credibility. Thus, in the applicant’s case, there was never the possibility that the central issue would be determined by a tribunal that was independent of one of the parties to the dispute. It followed that there had been a violation of Article 6 ss 1.’
Judges:
Casadevall, P
Citations:
Times 23-Nov-2006, [2006] ECHR 981, 11111/04, [2006] ECHR 1158, [2007] ECHR 656, [2007] BLGR 1, [2007] HLR 19, (2009) 48 EHRR 18
Links:
Statutes:
European Convention on Human Rights 6.1
Jurisdiction:
Human Rights
Cited by:
Cited – Ali v Birmingham City Council CA 7-Nov-2008
The Council said that it had discharged its duty to house the claimants after they had refused an offer of accommodation, and that decision had been reviewed. The claimant denied receiving a notice under the procedure. The court was asked whether . .
Cited – Wright and Others, Regina (on the Application of) v Secretary of State for Health and Another HL 21-Jan-2009
The claimants had been provisionally listed as ‘people considered unsuitable to work with vulnerable adults’ which meant that they could no longer work, but they said they were given no effective and speedy opportunity to object to the listing. . .
Cited – A, Regina (on the Application of) v London Borough of Croydon SC 26-Nov-2009
The applicants sought asylum, and, saying that they were children under eighteen, sought also the assistance of the local authority. Social workers judged them to be over eighteen and assistance was declined.
Held: The claimants’ appeals . .
Cited – G, Regina (on The Application of) v X School and Others CA 20-Jan-2010
The claimant was a teaching assistant. A complaint had been made that he had kissed a boy having work experience at the school, but it had been decided that no criminal prosecution would follow. He sought judicial review of the school’s decision to . .
Cited – Tomlinson and Others v Birmingham City Council SC 17-Feb-2010
The appellant asked whether the statutory review of a housing authority’s decision on whether he was intentionally homeless was a determination of a civil right, and if so whether the review was of the appropriate standard. The claimant said that . .
Cited – King, Regina (on The Application of) v Secretary of State for Justice CA 27-Mar-2012
In each case the prisoners challenged their transfer to cellular confinement or segregation within prison or YOI, saying that the transfers infringed their rights under Article 6, saying that domestic law, either in itself or in conjunction with . .
Cited – Ali v The United Kingdom ECHR 7-Nov-2012
The applicant had sought and been accepted for emergency housing assistance, but having refused the accomodation offered, and the Authority said that it had fulfilled its duty to her. . .
See Also – Tsfayo v The United Kingdom ECHR 10-Jul-2007
. .
Cited – Bourgass and Another, Regina (on The Application of) v Secretary of State for Justice SC 29-Jul-2015
The Court considered the procedures when a prisoner is kept in solitary confinement, otherwise described as ‘segregation’ or ‘removal from association’, and principally whether decisions to keep the appellants in segregation for substantial periods . .
Cited – Poshteh v Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea SC 10-May-2017
The appellant, applying for housing as a homeless person, had rejected the final property offered on the basis that its resemblance to the conditions of incarceration in Iran, from which she had fled, would continue and indeed the mental . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Human Rights, Housing
Updated: 03 August 2022; Ref: scu.246674