From: RustyBullethole, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Handgun owner can sue over money delay
Steed v Secretary of State for the Home Department
Before Lord Slynn of Hadley, Lord Woolf, Lord Hope of
Craighead, Lord Clyde and Lord Millett
Speeches May 18, 2000
It was arguable that compensation payable for handguns
surrendered the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 compensation scheme
should be assessed and paid within a reasonable time. It was
appropriate for a claimant who believed payment of his
compensation by the firearms compensation section of the Home
Office had been inordinately delayed to commence an action
against the Home Secretary by summons rather than apply for
judicial review.
The House of Lords so held in dismissing an appeal by the
Home Secretary against the dismissal by the Court of Appeal (Lord
Justice Beldam and Lord Justice Ward) on May 1, 1998 of his appeal
against the dismissal by Judge Cowell at West London County Court
on February 17, 1998 of his appeal from a refusal by District
Judge Madge of January 22, 1998 to strike out a summons issued by
David Robert Steed claiming immediate payment of compensation under
the scheme and interest thereon.
Mr Ross Cranston, QC, Solicitor-General and Mr David Elvin
for the Home Secretary; Mr Michael Heywood for Mr Steed.
LORD SLYNN said that the claimant alleged that it was an
implied term of the scheme that applications would be dealt with
within a reasonable time of receipt of the claim.
In respect of claims under options A and B, where the payments
to be made were fixed, a reasonable time was 30 days. Under option C,
where the value of the guns surrendered had to be determined, the period
was 60 days.
He claimed interest on his claims for compensation from 30 days
and 60 days, respectively, after his claims had been submitted. He had
now received payment for all his claims and the outstanding claim was
thus only for interest.
The first question was whether a person who had handed in his
guns had any right to compensation. The answer was plainly that once
all the conditions laid down in the scheme had been satisfied the
claimant was entitled to the sum specified under options A, B or C.
There was no fixed period in which the Home Office's
consideration and approval of the claim had to take place or of the
period within which the payment had to be made.
However, it seemed plain or at least to be plainly arguable,
and that on a strikeout application was all that needed to be shown,
that when a person was obliged to surrender his property and was to
be compensated for it his claim would be considered, approved or
rejected within a reasonable time.
That period might well differ for claims under options A or B
where the values were specified from those under option C for non-listed
guns where there might be room for debate as to valuation. The period
had to take into account the reasonable expectations of the claimant to
be compensated for what he had lost and the large number of claims with
which the Home Office had to deal.
Once, however, approval was given the option A and option B
payments had to be made "shortly" and the option C payment "as soon
as" the claimant's agreement as to the amount was received.
That approval or rejection was implicitly to be given, in his
Lordship's view, in a "reasonable time" and payment either "shortly"
after approval or "as soon as" the declaration had been received in
respect of option C.
The second question was whether the citizen who had given in his
gun could challenge in the court what he considered unreasonable delay
in the consideration of his claim or the failure to pay in due time. It
was again plain that he had to be able to bring such a challenge by one
means or another.
The Home Secretary contended that that could only be done by
judicial review at any rate until all the scheme's procedures have
been gone through and his entitlement and the value decided by the
compensation section. At that stage if the agreed sum due was not
paid a claim by summons was possible.
Before that stage was reached it was an abuse of process to
raise the matter by such a summons.
The starting point for that contention was O'Reilly v Mackman
([1983] 2 AC 237) and in particular the passage in the speech of Lord
Diplock (at p285D) where he said that it would be "contrary to public
policy, and as such an abuse of the process of the court, to permit a
person seeking to establish that a decision of a public authority
infringed rights to which he was entitled to protection under public
law to proceed by way of an ordinary action".
That case, as followed in Cocks v Thanet District Council
([1983] 2 AC 286), attached particular importance to the protection
given to public authorities by Order 53 of the Rules of the Supreme
Court to the extent that leave to bring proceedings was required and
a time limit imposed subject to good reason for extending it.
O'Reilly v Mackman had had an important influence on the
regulation of court proceedings where an individual sought to assert
his rights against a public authority.
But even in the passage relied on, Lord Diplock set out the
position as a general rule. He accepted further, (at p285E-F) that
although striking out might be appropriate normally: "there may be
exceptions, particularly where the invalidity of the decision arises
as a collateral issue in a claim for infringement of a right of the
claimant arising under private law".
One such exception was to be found in Roy v Kensington and
Chelsea and Westminster Family Practitioner Committee ([1992] 1 AC 624)
and another in Mercury Communications Ltd v Director General of
Telecommunications ([1996] 1 WLR 48).
In the instant case, if there had been, for example, a general
challenge to the vires of the scheme, a question as to whether it
complied with the statutory intention it would no doubt have been
right to begin by an application for judicial review.
But essentially the claimant said that money was due to him;
it was not paid when it was due; he had accordingly suffered damage,
valued in terms of interest, because of the delay.
His Lordship did not see that any of the questions which might
arise could not be dealt with by a judge on the hearing of the summons
or that answering such questions usurped the province of the
administration where a discretionary decision was reserved to the
administration.
The issues were largely either objective questions of fact as to
whether the gun was a listed gun and whether the procedures had been
completed or they depended on valuation on which evidence could be
given and a decision arrived at by a judge.
As a matter of procedure it seemed that it was more convenient
to begin by summons and to deal with a particular claim, and if a
real question of law arose to appeal, than by application for
judicial review, perhaps followed by an appeal.
The Home Office stressed the large number of claims which might
be affected by a decision in this case and was concerned by the
possibility of one or more claimants being able to jump the queue by
commencing court proceedings.
His Lordship understood that concern, but was not persuaded
that that pointed to judicial review being the only remedy. Indeed,
even allowing for the risk of jumping the queue it might in an
analogous situation be better for a summons like the claimant's one
to be adjourned for a short period to enable the claim to be dealt
with by the administrative authority.
But in the circumstances of the instant case the judge had
been both entitled and right to refuse the application to strike
out. The summons was not an abuse of the process of the court.
It was to be hoped now that the claim for interest could be
dealt with by agreement. The case had had enough of an airing.
If it could not, then it was for the judge to consider whether
interest was due because the claim was not decided within a reasonable
time and the money paid in accordance with the scheme.
Lord Woolf, Lord Hope, Lord Clyde and Lord Millett agreed.
Solicitors: Treasury Solicitor; Howell-Jones & Partners,
Kingston upon Thames.
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