England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
(MR JUSTICE SULLIVAN)

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2 Thursday, 18th July 2002

Thursday, 18th July 2002

1. LORD JUSTICE SCHIEMANN: Mr Turton is in an unfortunate position in the sense that he, like most of us in this country, has received various demands for Council Tax over the years and he finds himself short of cash to pay those demands. The reason he is short of cash, so he tells me, is that he has a number of claims against a number of other people, including the very local authority which makes the demand, and if only they would pay his claims then he would happily pay their Council Tax. But since they do not pay him he does not see any reason why he should pay them.
2. This is something which has been going on for a number of years. Some of his claims go back since before the introduction of Community Tax, but most recently he has been before this court and before the Administrative Court on a number of occasions trying to get somebody to understand the point that he is making. It seems that he was before Elias J on 18th February 2000. Elias J said that he could not set-off his claims against the tax demands that the Authority made against him, and so he dismissed the application for permission to move for judicial review. He suggested that Mr Turton ought to go and see the Citizens' Advice Bureau.
3. Mr Turton then came back later that year on 24th October before Sullivan J again essentially with the same basic complaint, which anybody can easily understand. Sullivan J gave exactly the same answer as Elias J, saying:

"Whatever complaints we may have against our Council they do not relieve us of the obligation to pay Council Tax."

4. As was his right, Mr Turton sought to appeal that decision of Sullivan J and he came to this court before Simon Brown LJ on 8th February 2001. Simon Brown LJ said much the same thing. As he put it:

"As a matter of law there is simply no basis upon which, whatever grievances he may have against the council, he is entitled to cease making payment of his annual council tax."

5. He ended:

"... no challenge here is viable, arguable or capable of success. Accordingly, I must refuse his renewed application."

6. Nothing daunted, Mr Turton launched the present proceedings with an application form in which his detailed statement of grounds starts:

"The magistrate's court decision"

- in this case it is the Sheffield Magistrates' Court which had issued a liability order in respect of the payment of the latest tranche of Council Tax -

"arose out of a Parliamentary instruction to collect the Council Tax."

7. That is absolutely right. He goes on:

"As did the High Court on September 1999"

- I do not think I have in front of me that decision -

"and again on October 24th [Sullivan J] and upon appeal in February 2001. [Simon Brown LJ]. My submission challenges those decisions."

8. He then sets out various grounds.
9. The problem that faces this court, or me in particular, is the same problem that the others had, which is that, although in general if I owe Mr Turton something and Mr Turton owes me something one does a balancing act and you are entitled to do that, when it comes to Council Tax Parliament does not allow that to be done. That, I am afraid, is the end of the matter.
10. So far as this present application is concerned the position is slightly worse for Mr Turton because I have absolutely no jurisdiction to set aside the judgments of another Lord Justice, Simon Brown LJ, who has already dealt with the appeal from Sullivan J, because one cannot eat the same pudding again and again (Mr Turton will understand that in relation to puddings; but it is equally true in relation to legal cases). One would never have an end if one was not prepared to take a decision, even one which one may regard as being unjust, as being the final decision.
11. For those reasons this application is dismissed.
12. I ought to add this to Mr Turton. Judges have to keep themselves available to try viable cases, to deal with people who are sitting in prison who say they are wrongly in prison, to deal with people who have a particular claim which has been launched in a particular way, and therefore there are procedures in the court to exclude from the courts persons who keep on coming back about the same problem, and there are two procedures which the court has for excluding someone who does that. One is a procedure which is set out in a case called Ebert v Venvil [2000] Ch R 484; and another one is set out in section 42 of the Supreme Court Act 1981. I shall not explain those procedures to Mr Turton because they may not arise. They probably will not. But if he makes another application in relation to this matter the chances are that those procedures will be employed against him, which would be a pity, because one does not want to have that sort of thing done against one and it does not achieve anything. Although I do have power to make such an order myself, he has impressed me, as he has impressed all the other judges before whom he has appeared, as a friendly and nice man with quite possibly - we cannot judge that - an understandable grievance against the Council. In order to judge that one would need to have a lot of details, but it does not help in the context of not paying the Council Tax for reasons I have sought to explain.
13. This application is refused.
(Application refused; no order for costs).