The claimant appealed against rejection of his allegations against his trial judge of bad faith. He had been convicted at trial, but later released.
Held: The appeal failed. The allegations made that errors of approach of a Crown Court judge at trial amounted to bad faith could not constitute prima facie evidence of want of good faith without there being established evidence of ulterior motive.
A defendant’s detention in prison after conviction could not be unlawful within article 5 unless the judge had exercised his powers in a way which revealed a gross and obvious irregularity.
Sir Brian Leveson, said: ‘The Court went on to adopt the distinction drawn by the House of Lords in Re McC (A Minor) [1985] AC 528 between custody decisions which are, on the one hand, voidable because they are wrong in law by reason of errors within jurisdiction and, on the other hand, those which are void ab initio and ex facie because they are so wrong in law as to be outside or in excess of jurisdiction. These were summarised in Benham in this way (at [25]): ‘In its judgment [i.e. that of the House of Lords], a magistrates court acted in excess of jurisdiction in three circumstances only: (1) if it acted without having jurisdiction over the cause; (2) if it exercised its powers in a procedural manner that involved a gross and obvious irregularity, or (3) if it made an order that had no proper foundation in law because of a failure to observe a statutory condition precedent.”
Lord Dyson MR, Sir Brian Leveson P, Tomlinson LJ
[2015] EWCA Civ 742, [2015] WLR(D) 316, [2015] 3 WLR 1909, [2016] QB 676
Bailii, WLRD
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Webster v Ministry of Justice QBD 23-Oct-2014
The claimant had been convicted at trial, and release after a successful appeal but after considerable time in jail. He now comlained of the judge’s conduct at trial saying that misdirections amounted to bad faith.
Held: The claim failed. . .
Cited by:
Cited – Robinson, Regina v CACD 14-Jun-2017
The appellant had escaped from custody between conviction and sentence. After re-arrest he was charged with absconding, but also sentenced at prison to an additional term for escaping. He now claimed autrefois convict.
Held: The decision of . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Human Rights
Updated: 02 January 2022; Ref: scu.550591
