Credibility of a Party. Although a judge can form views about the evidence as a trial progresses and legitimately tell the parties what is in his mind, it is not acceptable for him to form, or give the impression of having formed, a firm view of one side’s credibility when the other side are yet to call evidence which is intended to impugn it. A fair-minded observer would have concluded that there was a real possibility that the judge had prematurely formulated a conclusion adverse to one party ...
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Effect of Perjury on Appeal. Even on the assumption that the Court of Appeal’s jurisdiction to reopen a case extends by analogy from cases where a judge has been biased to cases where there is fraud, that jurisdiction should be used only in the most exceptional cases where there is no alternative remedy. In this case, where new evidence arguably demonstrated that there had been perjury at the original trial, the complaints should have been pursued by way of a fresh action to set aside the origi ...
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Purpose of Pleadings. The Privy Council, hearing conjoined appeals from the Court of Appeal of The Bahamas, held that the ultimate purpose of one party’s pleadings was to inform the other party of the case against them. The fact that the precise ambit or extent of the relief sought might be a matter for argument did not justify allowing an application to be struck out for want of prosecution where the basic allegations were sufficiently clear. Any lack of clarity could be corrected by appropria ...
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Strike out where issue could have been dealt with in previous proceedings. The appellants had brought claims before an employment tribunal in which a certain document only became available at a late stage and the tribunal did not take it into account. A Master held that the appeal was an abuse of process because the appellants had not been adversely affected in the way they put their case. Eady J. held that the Master had been correct to strike out the claim for abuse of process as it raised is ...
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Limitation in MIB claims. Flaux J held that, on the true construction of Directive 84/5 and by virtue of the Community principle of equivalence, the Motor Insurers Bureau procedure relied upon by the United Kingdom as implementing the Directive should be subject to a limitation period no less favourable than that which applied to the commencement of proceedings by minors for personal injury in tort against a traced driver under section 28 of the Limitation Act 1980. Nevertheless, the claimant h ...
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Privilege: Communications prior to Issue of Proceedings. The “without prejudice” rule could apply to communications made in the course of a dispute notwithstanding that litigation had not yet begun. The claim to privilege could not turn purely on temporal considerations. The question of proximity related to the subject matter of the dispute rather than to how long before the threat, or start, of litigation it was aired in negotiations between the parties. The crucial consideration was whether ...
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Appeals against the Same Order. It would stultify the procedure introduced by the Administration of Justice Act 1969 s.12 and s.13 if different appeals against the same order were to proceed in parallel in different courts. The words “leave is granted” in s.13(2) had to be understood to refer to an unconditional grant of leave or a grant of leave subject to conditions which were accepted or
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Privilege against Self-Incrimination. The privilege against self-incrimination could not be invoked in respect of evidence which existed independently of any compulsory questioning of a defendant or any application of the Court’s compulsory discovery process. The appellant had sought to overturn a decision that images found on his computer when a search order was exercised should be disclosed to the police. It was held that the material constituted “independent evidence” even though it had der ...
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Privilege: Status of Documents arising from Meeting between the Parties. Where the Defendants had sought disclosure of documents arising out of a meeting between the Claimants’ lawyers and lawyers representing Part 20 Defendants, the claimants’ claim to withhold protection based on “without prejudice” privilege would be rejected as the meeting had not concerned settlement of the dispute. The Claimants would be ordered to consider the documents and decide whether any, or any part, of them was d ...
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Here counsel for the Accused sought a sixth continuation of the preliminary hearing to enable the defence to obtain a report from a neuro-psychologist who had been identified but not instructed. The court considered whether the defence motion, unopposed by the Crown, should be granted.
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