England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
CIVIL DIVISION
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION

		The Royal Courts of Justice The Strand London Thursday 17 January 2002

Thursday 17 January 2002

1. LORD JUSTICE LATHAM: Mr Readings has appeared today on Mrs Lewis' behalf. In order to ensure that I understand the nature of the case and of Mrs Lewis' complaint, I have been prepared to hear him.
2. He makes two submissions to the court: firstly, that the cases should be adjourned; secondly, if not adjourned, that I should accept that there is jurisdiction in this court to hear the applications and to grant permission to appeal.
3. As to the first, there is no doubt that Mrs Lewis suffers from ill health and there are certificates that she is unable to attend work as a result of problems to her knee and her back. There is no certificate which indicates that she is unable to travel to this court today. If there were any merit in her substantive application, I might have been minded to grant an adjournment but, as will appear shortly, there is none, so I refuse an adjournment.
4. Both the applications before me are for permission to appeal against orders of Andrew Smith J. Those orders were refusals of permission to appeal from decisions of Master Trench. It follows that there is no substantive decision against which the applicant can appeal. Section 54.4 of the Access to Justice Act makes it plain that there is no right of appeal against the refusal or grant of permission to appeal unless such a right is given by rules of court. No rules of court give to Mrs Lewis the right to appeal in either case. Accordingly, this court has no jurisdiction to entertain the applications and for that reason they must be treated as dismissed.
ORDER: Applications refused