England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
(Mr Justice Jackson)

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2 Friday, 24th May 2002

1. LORD JUSTICE LATHAM: This is an application by Dr. Saxena for permission to appeal the dismissal by Jackson J of 8th February 2002 of his application for judicial review of the Legal Services Commission's decision refusing him legal aid in respect of two sets of proceedings. The judge's dismissal was based on his conclusion that there was no prospect of success for the reasons he fully and clearly set out in his judgment, with which I entirely agree. This was a hopeless application.
2. Dr. Saxena does not appear before me today to pursue it. He made an application to the court for an adjournment on the basis that he was due to have a heart operation in India today. That application was supported simply by a letter from a person with an almost identical name to the applicant's from India. It set out no details of the applicant's situation. It gave no indication as to the background. It seemed, when the matter was referred to me, that before I could consider adjourning the matter, I needed to have further information, and in particular a proper medical report. Dr. Saxena did not produce any such report, but he attended the Court of Appeal Office in person and sought to persuade those there that the matter should be adjourned, indicating that he did not think that I could have been properly informed of the facts when I made my decision. The fact that Dr. Saxena was in the court office and was clearly aggrieved by the situation persuaded me that the sensible course was to offer him there and then, as I was in the building and there was a court available, the opportunity to come before me in order to explain the position. He declined. He subsequently sent to the court an airline ticket indicating that he was leaving the country last weekend for India. Once again, it follows that he has failed to provide the material which was appropriate for the court to have in order to accede to an application to adjourn in such circumstances, and accordingly I declined to take the case out of the list for today.
3. Dr. Saxena has not appeared. It seems to me that, for the reasons I gave at the beginning of this judgment, this being an utterly hopeless application in any event, it should not trouble this court any more, and accordingly the application is refused.
Order: Application refused.