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Cite as: [2002] 2 All ER 789, [2001] EWHC Admin 695

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H M ATTORNEY-GENERAL v. GEDALJAHU EBERT [2001] EWHC Admin 695 (21st September, 2001)

Case No: CO/1713/2001
Neutral Citation Number: [2001] EWHC Admin 695
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand,
London, WC2A 2LL
Friday 21st September 2001

B e f o r e :

LORD JUSTICE BROOKE
and
MR JUSTICE HARRISON
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	H M ATTORNEY-GENERAL	Claimant
	- and -
	GEDALJAHU EBERT	Defendant

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(Transcript of the Handed Down Judgment of
Smith Bernal Reporting Limited, 190 Fleet Street
London EC4A 2AG
Tel No: 020 7421 4040, Fax No: 020 7831 8838
Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)
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Neil Garnham QC (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor for the Attorney-General)
Mr Ebert appeared in person
Hugo Keith (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor as friend of the court)
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Judgment
As Approved by the Court
Crown Copyright ©
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE : This is the judgment of the court.

1. This is in many respects a sad case. Mr Ebert has been before the courts, or has made applications to the courts, many, many times during the last eight years. He has been made bankrupt. A Grepe v Loam order was made against him as early as September 1997. This order has been renewed from time to time in even more restrictive terms. He was declared a vexatious litigant by this court in July 2000. Now, by an application made only ten months later, the Attorney General seeks further injunctive relief against him.

2. The story which led to all this litigation has been told many times in earlier judgments. In particular, it was told in the judgment of Laws LJ in this court in July last year. Mr Ebert went into a property development venture with a man called Morris Wolff through the vehicle of a company called Europride Limited in the late 1980s. When the property market went sour, the company's undertaking was sold by administrative receivers, and it went into insolvent liquidation in July 1993. Both Mr Ebert and Mr Morris Wolff had given joint and several guarantees to the Midland Bank in support of advances made by that bank to their company. The bank in due course demanded payment under its guarantees, and in 1995 it commenced separate actions against the two former directors to recover the debt owed to it.

3. What we will call Action 156 was brought against Mr Ebert. Summary judgment was entered against him by a deputy master in June 1995, and an appeal against that judgment was dismissed in July 1995. On each occasion a small adjustment was made to the amount of the bank's claim. The judgment in the sum awarded by the deputy master (for £55,894.70) was entered in the cause book, and it was never formally altered to show the slight reduction ordered by the deputy judge. This judgment was not drawn up or otherwise perfected. Last year the bank's solicitors agreed that the cause book should be amended to show the correct amount of £54,374.78.

4. In Action 9906 the bank obtained summary judgment against Morris Wolff for £55,894.70. Morris Wolff's brother Ralph came to his rescue, and made arrangements whereby his brother was able to pay this sum to the bank on terms that the bank assigned the benefit of its judgment in the other action to Ralph Wolff. Ralph Wolff then made a statutory demand on Mr Ebert for payment of the assigned judgment debt. After Mr Ebert had made an unsuccessful challenge to the validity of the statutory demand, Ralph Wolff presented a bankruptcy petition which was contested on much the same grounds. On 22nd July 1997 Lloyd J made a bankruptcy order.

5. The subsequent history is set out in paragraph 21 to 42 of Laws LJ's judgment. Mr Ebert maintained that this judgment contained inaccuracies on points of detail, but the judgment contains a good broad description of the events that took place. We do not need to refer to the first of the seven sets of proceedings on which the Attorney-General relied (which was effectively dismissed in March 1996). The last five (whose effect is summarised in paragraphs 35-42 of Laws LJ's judgment) pale into comparative insignificance compared with the course of events he describes in relation to the second set of proceedings, although they must have represented a costly and time-consuming nuisance to the other parties who were involved with them. They all arose out of what Laws LJ described as "the Europride saga".

6. The second set of proceedings related to Ralph Wolff's statutory demand and bankruptcy petition. Laws LJ understandably said (at para 17) that it was in this litigation that the "astonishing" nature of Mr Ebert's conduct was most patently apparent. The key events in the history which followed the bankruptcy order in July 1997 can be summarised in these terms:

(i) On 18th September 1997 Laddie J dismissed a motion by Mr Ebert to commit Ralph Wolff's solicitor to prison for contempt of court. He said that the allegations on which the motion was based constituted an example of Mr Ebert's willingness to make wild and unsupportable allegations of the most damning nature against not just his former business partner but anybody associated with him. He made a Grepe v Loam order.
(ii) On 10th December 1997 Neuberger J dismissed an application by Mr Ebert for annulment of the bankruptcy order. He said that concerns he had once had that matters had not been fairly investigated before the bankruptcy order was upheld were now at rest.
(iii) On 19th January 1998 Rimer J dismissed an application by Mr Ebert to commit Ralph Wolff and his solicitor to prison. He said it constituted a gross abuse of the process of the court.
(iv) On 25th March 1998 the Court of Appeal dismissed an application by Mr Ebert for permission to appeal Neuberger J's order at (ii) above. During the course of his judgment Potter LJ dismissed as a technicality Mr Ebert's complaints that the judgment entered in the cause book by the deputy master had never been reduced downwards and had never been perfected. He also rejected as a curable irregularity the point that although the Midland Bank's judgment against Morris Wolff was for a slightly higher amount than the bank's reduced judgment against Mr Ebert, the bankruptcy order was made on the larger of these two sums.
(v) On 30th April and 7th July 1998 Neuberger J dismissed further applications by Mr Ebert, in which he was contending that Ralph Wolff should only be entitled to prove for half the amount Mr Ebert owed to Midland Bank, and seeking to set aside the assignment and the transaction between Ralph Wolff and the Midland Bank. The judge made a third Grepe v Loam order (a second having been made by Carnwath J on 5th February 1998). In future, any applications by Mr Ebert for leave were to be made to Rimer J or Neuberger J and dealt with on paper.
(vi) On 10th September 1998 the Court of Appeal dismissed an application by Mr Ebert for permission to appeal Neuberger J's order of 7th July 1998 on the basis that he could not raise again the same matters which he had raised unsuccessfully so often before. It adjourned for later consideration an issue relating to the scope of the Grepe v Loam order made on 7th July.
(vii) On 1st October 1998 Neuberger J refused an application by Mr Ebert for permission to raise an issue as to whether Ralph Wolff had paid the consideration for the assignment, and three weeks later he struck out as abusive an application by Mr Ebert against the liquidator of Europride and the Midland Bank. He also made a fourth Grepe v Loam order.
(viii) On 14th January and 29th March 1999 Neuberger J dismissed two further attempts by Mr Ebert to set aside the bankruptcy order. On the second occasion he said that this appeared to be yet another attempt by Mr Ebert to raise points which had been gone over time and again. The Court of Appeal on 20th April 1999 refused permission to appeal the first of these orders.
(ix) On 30th March 1999, in a judgment reported at [1999] 3 WLR 670, the Court of Appeal dismissed Mr Ebert's challenge to the width of the Grepe v Loam orders. Lord Woolf said that the court was prepared to accept that Mr Ebert might initially have been hard done by, because his co-guarantor had avoided all liability, but that it was clear that he had already brought vexatious proceedings and that he would continue to bring vexatious proceedings unless he was restrained from doing so.
(x) On 25th May 1999 Neuberger J dismissed three applications by Mr Ebert which represented an effort to set aside earlier orders made against him. He said that they were all hopeless.
(xi) On 14th July 1999 Neuberger J refused an application by Mr Ebert for permission to challenge the statutory demand, the petition and the bankruptcy order. Mr Ebert was now suggesting that the judge was guilty of "fraud and blackmail", and made other aspersions against him. The judge declined to recuse himself for reasons set out on pages 3 and 4 of his short written statement of that date. He said he did not think Mr Ebert was making the allegations against him out of malice.
(xii) In paragraph 30 of his judgment Laws LJ described two further orders by the Court of Appeal and two further orders made by Neuberger J between July and October 1999, all dismissing various applications made by Mr Ebert in respect of different aspects of `the Europride saga'. In December 1999, in a further judgment, Neuberger J referred to the fact that Mr Ebert had made a total of 50 (possibly over 80) applications of various sorts, all of which had failed.
(xiii) On 6th March 2000, Laddie and Neuberger JJ, sitting as a Divisional Court of the Chancery Division, dismissed a further application by Mr Ebert in the bankruptcy proceedings. On this occasion Mr Ebert was seeking to re-litigate a point concerned with an alleged forgery which had been decided against him by Rimer J two years earlier. The court now directed that Mr Ebert should not be allowed to make applications under the Grepe v Loam orders more frequently than once every two months unless he could demonstrate in writing that a more urgent application was called for.
(xiv) On three occasions between 14th March and 12th April 2000 Neuberger J dismissed further applications by Mr Ebert under the Grepe v Loam orders.

7. In paragraphs 48-53 of his judgment, with which Silber J agreed, Laws LJ explained why he considered that an order under section 42 of the Supreme Court Act 1981 was required. He said that Mr Ebert's obsessions had cut him away from reality, and that he was entirely unable to appreciate the hopelessness of any further process he might commence in relation to the judgment, the assignment or the bankruptcy order. His vexatious proceedings had been very damaging to the public interest, because scarce and valuable judicial resources had been extravagantly wasted on barren and misconceived litigation, to the detriment of other litigants with real cases to try. He identified four advantages to be obtained from a section 42 order:

(i) His judgment would provide a compendious overview of the whole of the relevant litigation history, to which any judge dealing with an application under section 42(1A)(a) would be able to refer;
(ii) There is no appeal against a first instance decision under section 42(3);
(iii) The court will avoid being vexed with arguments as to whether a particular fresh process is or is not caught by an extant Grepe v Loam order;
(iv) If the judge was in any doubt as to whether Mr Ebert should be granted permission to pursue an application, he could seek assistance from the Attorney-General, and it would not be necessary for Mr Ebert's adversaries to mount argument to dispel the doubt, as had happened on 6th March 2000.

8. In his short supporting judgment Silber J said (at para 64) that this case was uniquely strong in the light of Mr Ebert's burning determination to continue with these claims against the Wolff brothers and those connected with his bankruptcy in the face of many defeats in the courts. This was a very extreme instance of extreme litigation.

9. We have summarised this earlier history in some detail because, as Mr Keith has rightly reminded us, on this application for injunctive relief the court should be concerned not so much by what has happened in the past, but by what is likely to happen in the future if Mr Ebert's litigious activities are not further restrained.

10. The present application is supported by an affidavit and a witness statement made by Mr John Selch, the Group Manager of the Royal Courts of Justice, and a witness statement by Mr Donald Bennett, who is Neuberger J's clerk. The form this evidence took caused us some difficulty, because while it was all admissible Mr Selch could not give any direct evidence about the matters to which he deposed and Mr Bennett merely exhibited a great many documents. Mr Ebert disputed a number of Mr Selch's assertions, and an order requiring Mr Selch to attend for cross-examination would not have taken matters any further, because he would only have been able to say that he was recording what he had been told by others. In view of the scale of the restraints now sought by the Attorney-General, we decided to proceed on the basis of the facts which were not or could not properly be in dispute. Mr Garnham QC, who appeared for the Attorney-General, did not try to deflect us from this course once he had appreciated the difficulty.

11. Mr Selch told us that in the course of about 3½ years Mr Ebert had made at least 151 applications to the court for permission to issue fresh proceedings or applications in existing proceedings. All but 5 of these 151 applications were adjudicated on by Neuberger J and all were dismissed because they were without merit and generally repetitive of previous applications. He had made applications to the Court of Appeal for permission to appeal, all of which were refused, on at least 20 occasions. We did not understand Mr Ebert to dispute these figures. 20-30 further applications of one kind or another have been made. Sometimes his wife made applications in connection with the same general subject-matter.

12. The main thrust of Mr Selch's affidavit is set out in seven paragraphs headed "Disruption to the Administration of Justice". In so far as the facts are not in dispute, the history they describe runs along the following lines.

13. Mr Ebert has been in the habit of requesting that his applications to Neuberger J should be dealt with immediately or within 24 hours of his making them. Mr Ebert told us that this was his right, pursuant to the Bankruptcy Rules or the European Convention on Human Rights. When his applications were not dealt with within this timescale, he and his wife regularly followed them up with letters and telephone calls to court staff. Mr Ebert said that he could see nothing wrong in this, and that they had not been abusive to staff.

14. Next, Mr Ebert has on at least four occasions sat in court in cases before Neuberger J which did not involve him. He has often been accompanied by his wife. He denied that on his attendances at court he had frequently risen to interrupt the proceedings and to demand that Neuberger J dealt with his application first. On the other hand he did not dispute that security staff or the court tipstaff had been called on a number of occasions to remove him from the court at the request of the judge, his clerk or his usher. He said that this had happened on 5-6 or 10 different occasions.

15. We were shown correspondence from Mr Ebert to Neuberger J in which he accused the judge of being corrupt and having accepted bribes. His complaints about the judge's conduct (which contained references to conspiracy, high treason, perjury and crimes against humanity) became more and more shrill as time went on. In February 2001 Mr Ebert exhibited a notice outside the Royal Courts of Justice which contained allegations that Neuberger J and two other members of the judiciary concerned with his bankruptcy case had a profit share in a multi-million pound fraud.

16. On 22nd March 2001 Mr Ebert and his wife, accompanied by the president and chairman of the Litigants in Person Society, came to the counter in Room 110 of the Thomas More Building and requested that an urgent application by Mrs Ebert should be heard immediately by Mr Registrar James, who was working in his private room. When the registrar declined to deal with the matter immediately, Mr and Mrs Ebert said that if their application to have a roof over their head was not heard immediately they would call the police in respect of the registrar's non-obedience of the law.

17. The registrar eventually agreed to hear Mrs Ebert's application with two security guards present. One of them had already escorted Mr and Mrs Ebert out of Court 54 earlier in the morning. The application was dismissed because Mrs Ebert, who was also subject to a Grepe v Loam order, had not obtained permission from a High Court judge to make her application.

18. We omit reference to the facts set out in paragraphs 11 and 12 of Mr Selch's affidavit because they are in dispute. The final incident relied on occurred when a member of the court's security staff was summoned outside the Royal Courts of Justice, where he found Mr Ebert holding a barrister who had appeared against him on the basis that he had obtained a possession order by fraud and that Mr Ebert was entitled to make a citizen's arrest for theft. The police were called, and the parties to the incident went to the local police station, where the barrister declined to make a formal complaint. Mr Ebert did not dispute that this incident had occurred, but he maintained that he had effected the arrest outside the court gates and not, as alleged, in the West Green car park. He told us that so long as he was outside the court precincts he was entitled to effect a citizen's arrest on anyone, whether an opposing lawyer or even Neuberger J, who had deprived him of his property dishonestly in connection with these proceedings.

19. We have read with care all the documents exhibited by Mr Bennett which relate to the period after the section 42 order. Neuberger J appears to have dealt with the torrent of applications and correspondence which continued to flow from Mr Ebert with exemplary courtesy and patience. On at least one occasion he gave permission to Mr Ebert to seek permission to appeal, because of the accusations of corruption which Mr Ebert was making against him. Jonathan Parker LJ ruled that the proposed appeal would stand no chance of success. On many occasions Neuberger J dismissed Mr Ebert's applications on the basis that they raised no new points.

20. In his Acknowledgment of Service Mr Ebert said that he intended to contest the claim and to dispute the jurisdiction of the court. He sought a direction that the application be transferred to the Central Criminal Court. He referred to abuse of the process, torture, fraud and perjury as details of directions he was seeking from the court. He also objected to the Attorney-General issuing under this procedure. In addition to the other matters he mentioned he said that the procedure was defective and did not comply with CPR 3.4. We satisfied that the claim is properly brought, that this court has jurisdiction to hear it, and that it is inappropriate to transfer it to the Central Criminal Court as Mr Ebert suggests.

21. Mr Ebert appeared in person at the hearing of the Attorney-General's application. He produced a file containing 139 documents which related in one way or other to incidents in the Europride saga. He repeated points (such as those which Potter LJ had dismissed as curable irregularities or technicalities) which had already been litigated unsuccessfully before. He was particularly anxious that we should consider the effect of some bank statements which had recently come to light, which related to the 1993-5 history.

22. In view of the previous history of this matter, we consider that it would be very unwise for this court to attempt an analysis of the documents Mr Ebert showed us unless it is necessary to do so for the proper disposal of the Attorney-General's application. There have been judgments in favour of the Midland Bank in relation to the amount demanded of Mr Ebert and Morris Wolff under their guarantees in December 1992, with adjustments made for the incidence of interest and the receipt of sums totalling £41,356 from Receivers in 1993-4, and it is futile for Mr Ebert to reopen issues relating to the Midland Bank indebtedness on an application of this kind. If he has any genuinely new point, we understand that Patten J has now been assigned by the Vice-Chancellor to handle any applications by Mr Ebert, and he will be able to consider it. It was, incidentally, evident to us that many of the very technical matters to which Mr Ebert drew our attention had already been decided against him on one or more occasions in the past.

23. On this application we are concerned with issues relating to Mr Ebert's behaviour. The case for the Attorney-General on this application is that since the section 42 order was made against him, Mr Ebert's conduct has been such that further constraints must now be imposed on him to stop his interfering with the proper administration of justice. The Attorney-General accepts that Mr Ebert has a constitutional right of access to a court, and he does not seek to deny him that right. It is the manner in which Mr Ebert conducts himself in the pursuit of his various contentions of which complaint is made.

24. The Attorney-General seeks fourfold relief, which we will summarise in the following terms. First, that Mr Ebert should be barred from entering the Royal Courts of Justice without express permission, except for the purposes of attending a hearing for which he has been granted permission. Secondly, that he should be barred from any form of communication with anyone at the court except for the purpose of making the formal applications mentioned in the draft order. Thirdly, that any application he makes must be made in writing in a particular form and determined in writing (unless the court directs an oral hearing). And finally, that any application of any kind which is not made in that form should stand dismissed without being heard.

25. It is evident that at the heart of the Attorney-General's concerns is the worry that if Mr Ebert is not restrained in this way, he will continue to visit the Royal Courts of Justice and disrupt proceedings or waste the time of court staff, either by personal attendance in court offices or over the telephone, by making requests that his multitudinous applications should be given precedence over other court business. The evidence on which the court may act is less powerful than the evidence originally presented by Mr Selch, for the reasons given in paragraph 10 above, so that it is necessary to look with some care at the undisputed evidence.

26. It is not in dispute that on up to ten different occasions Mr Ebert has had to be removed from court by security guards. He asserted that he was not disturbing the court, but security guards are not requested to remove a litigant from court without some good reason. It is also not in dispute that he visited bankruptcy chambers and said that if the registrar did not break off what he was doing and hear an application made without notice, the police would be called.

27. It is also not in dispute that Mr Ebert on many occasions made requests of court staff to the effect that one or other of the many applications he was making should be dealt with by the judge immediately. It is possible to obtain a flavour of the peremptory demands Mr Ebert was in the habit of making by referring to the documents numbered 462, 495, 496, 530, 539, 554, 560, 577, 580, 599, 603, 611 and 612 in the main court bundle.

28. It is also not in dispute that Mr Ebert made many serious accusations against Neuberger J in many of the letters he wrote to him. Judges have to have broad shoulders, and the relevance of this evidence goes to the contention that Mr Ebert is now so completely obsessed by this litigation that he does not cavil about making allegations of corruption, high treason and crimes against humanity against the judge who has been handling the case with remarkable patience and sensitivity. He also published the notice outside the Royal Courts of Justice to which mention is made in paragraph 15 above. This illustrates how Mr Ebert's sense of perspective is now seriously out of kilter.

29. While we are willing to accept that Mr Ebert performed the citizen's arrest we have described in paragraph 18 above outside the precincts of the court, in the absence of direct evidence to contrary effect, the obsessive zeal with which he maintained that he was entitled to effect such an arrest on anyone connected with this litigation who had in his opinion defrauded him, even if it be the judge himself, provides evidence on which we can act to the effect that he has now lost all sense of proper perspective in the conduct of this litigation.

30. Mr Garnham showed us three judgments in which courts have had to exercise unusual powers in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice. In re de Court (The Times, 27th November 1997) Sir Richard Scott VC was concerned with a litigant who had spat at the Chancery Clerk of the Lists. A medical certificate showed that he should be regarded as a person under disability: he had made over 100 attempts at instituting ridiculous or incomprehensible legal proceedings. The Vice-Chancellor held that he was in contempt of court. The Times report continues:

"His Lordship had a duty to provide protection to court officials not just in the High Court but also in any court where Mr de Court might seek to institute proceedings. He had an inherent power and duty to take those steps as a judge and Vice-Chancellor of the Chancery Division ...
In the exercise of that power he would make an order in two parts. First to restrain Mr de Court from pursuing any action in court except by a next friend who could act for him: second to restrain him from entering any civil court premises save as necessary to answer court subpoenas."

31. In ex p Leachman (COT 16th January 1998) this court was concerned with a litigant who had become wholly obsessed with the habeas corpus process and had lost all touch with reality. His behaviour in some ways mirrored that of Mr Ebert. Simon Brown LJ said that the court was told that he frequently telephoned Crown Office staff and demanded that they arranged immediate hearings for his applications. An order was made that no further application concerning his detention arising out of a 1993 conviction should be made, or (if made) be accepted or processed by the Crown Office, and that the litigant should not thereafter communicate with the Crown Office, save only in writing marked for the attention of a particular member of their staff.

32. In Binder v Binder (CAT 9th March 2000) a litigant had instituted innumerable proceedings in the Family Division in relation to his children. The Court of Appeal, in a judgment given by Thorpe LJ, with whom Laws LJ agreed, upheld an order made by the President of the Family Division in terms similar to the relief now being sought by the Attorney-General against Mr Ebert. The court of its own motion made an order protecting the staff of the Court of Appeal in terms similar to the President's order, which protected the staff of the Family Division.

33. Mr Garnham told us that although it might well be that Mr Ebert's conduct justified committal for contempt, the Attorney-General took the view that it would be preferable to regulate his future conduct rather than to seek to punish his past actions. Mr Ebert disputed that the Attorney-General was entitled to adopt this approach, and invited the court to direct him to take committal proceedings, but we see no reason why we should adopt this course. It is for the Attorney-General to identify the relief he seeks and not for this court to dictate to him what he should do.

34. Mr Keith, acting as the friend of the court, accepted the proposition that the court had the general power to control its own procedure so as to prevent its being used to achieve injustice and in order to maintain its character as a court of law ( Bremer Vulkan Schiffbau und Maschinenfabrik v South India Shipping Corporation [1981] AC 909, 977D-G). He reminded us that in Ebert v Venvil [2000] Ch 484 the Court of Appeal extended the jurisdiction of the court to the prohibition, without the leave of the court, of new proceedings which are likely to constitute an abuse of process.

35. We accept Mr Keith's submission that the court's supervisory role now extends beyond the mere regulation of litigation and of litigants who have submitted themselves to the compulsory jurisdiction of the court. It includes the regulation of the manner in which the court process may in general be utilised. It is of course well established that the High Court may, in appropriate circumstances, grant an injunction to restrain an anticipated interference with the administration of justice, amounting to a contempt ( Attorney-General v Times Newspapers Ltd [1974] AC 273, 293G-294A, 306B). The advent of the Civil Procedure Rules only serves to bolster the principle that in the exercise of its inherent jurisdiction the court has the power to restrain litigants from wasting the time of court staff and disturbing the orderly conduct of court processes in a completely obsessive pursuit of their own litigation, taking it forward by one unmeritorious application after another and insisting that they should be afforded priority over other litigants.

36. It goes without saying that every citizen has a right of access to a court both at common law and pursuant to ECHR Article 6. It is, however, implicit in the English caselaw (see Grepe v Loam (1887) 37 CLD 168 and Ebert v Venvil [2000] Ch 484) that this right of access is not absolute. This is also the effect of ECHR jurisprudence, which requires only that any limitations imposed on it must not impair the very essence of the right ( Stubbings v UK 23 EHRR 213, para 48). It is therefore incumbent on the court in the exercise of its power to control its own procedure, or to prevent future contempts of court, to ensure that nothing it may do amounts to an improper hindrance or interference with a litigant's right of access or is otherwise disproportionate.

37. Mr Ebert presented his case in response to the Attorney-General's application with moderation. He said that it was quite unreasonable to prevent him from using the library or the coffee shop or the toilets at the Royal Courts of Justice. He thought he enjoyed a good relationship with judges, apart from a few of them. He was, however, concerned and frustrated by the way in which Neuberger J treated him. He maintained that Neuberger J was incompetent and biased. He went on to make a number of points about the detailed contents of Mr Selch's affidavit, which we have already taken into account in this judgment. He maintained that the rules entitled him to a ruling forthwith whenever he made an application, and that he had been entitled to behave in the way he did when he urged court staff to list his cases. He said he had not threatened or abused court staff.

38. Mr Ebert argued that if he made unreasonable applications, jurisdiction already existed to control him. Even if he had misbehaved in Neuberger J's court, this was no reason to ban him from the entire court complex. He intended to go on making applications until he achieved a breakthrough and was allowed his day in court.

39. In our judgment a distinction must be made between Mr Ebert's practice of making innumerable applications (which can be kept under control by other techniques), and the matters set out in this judgment which amount to disturbances of the process of the court. Mr Garnham accepted that some of the matters on which he relied could have been regarded as contempts of court and been the subject of committal proceedings, if that course had seemed desirable. He said he was asking us to make an order restraining future conduct by Mr Ebert which was likely to constitute a contempt of court or an unwarrantable disruption of the administration of justice. For this purpose, he had to show a substantial likelihood that such misconduct would occur.

40. We have taken into account everything Mr Ebert has said to us and showed us, and we have already praised the moderate terms in which he addressed us. It is clear that he has developed an irrational obsession about the manner in which Neuberger J has dealt with the many applications he has made. We have already described how a different high court judge has been appointed to deal with any further applications which Mr Ebert may make, and it is to be hoped that he will desist in future from the intemperate abuse he heaped upon his predecessor.

41. Notwithstanding this change, we consider that the Attorney-General is entitled to the relief he seeks. It is completely clear that neither the Grepe v Loam orders nor the section 42 order have prevented Mr Ebert from wasting the time of court staff and disrupting the conduct of court business, even if they have succeeded in taking the burden off the many other parties to the Europride saga whom he has plagued with unmeritorious litigation during the last five years. A careful study of the papers produced by Neuberger J's clerk and of the judgments of different courts (including the judgment of Laws LJ last year) has persuaded us that there is a substantial risk that the process of the court will continue to be seriously abused, and that the proper administration of justice in the future will be seriously impeded by Mr Ebert in future unless we intervene now with appropriate injunctive relief. We see no reason, in the light of his conduct in the past, why Mr Ebert should be permitted to enter any part of the Royal Courts of Justice except to the extent allowed for in the injunction we will grant.

42. We also consider that Mr Ebert's past conduct is so exceptional that it is more appropriate that he be restrained by injunction than by the process of committal for contempt for individual acts, a process we would regard as completely pointless in the context of this case.

43. When we have handed down this judgment we will hear the parties in relation to the precise form the relief should take. We consider that any injunction should be for a period of three years in the first instance, with liberty to the Attorney-General to apply thereafter if, as events turn out, an extension of the duration of the injunction proves to be necessary. An order which is, in the first instance, limited in time in this way will be a proportionate response to the nuisance of which the Attorney-General makes complaint.

****************

LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: A copy of the judgment of the court has been made available this morning for the parties to read and we now hand it down.
Yes?
MISS RAHMAN: My Lord, I apologise for my lateness. I apologise I was stuck on a tube which had signal failure. I apologise to the court for that.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Now so far as the order is concerned, I hope that you have been told the changes which were discussed at the hearing of the application?
MISS RAHMAN: I have not personally been told, but I have had a brief opportunity to speak to my instructing solicitors and I have not any instructions that there is anything amiss. Obviously it was not my case.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: It may not be your case, but I would hope the Treasury Solicitor has instructed you in relation to the wording of the order.
MISS RAHMAN: I am sure that if there are any problems with it I would have been told, but I will just check that, my Lord.
MISS RAHMAN: My Lord, my instructing solicitor is telling me that she has only just received the judgment herself and likewise I have only just received it, but everything so far as we know is----
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Well, the judgment was available at 9 o'clock this morning and we discussed the form of the wording with counsel, and the Treasury Solicitor and counsel have both had the opportunity of seeing it before 9. Do you have the draft order before you? It starts at page 14 on the papers.
MR EBERT: My Lord, may I also say (inaudible) before anything is discussed.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Just sit down for a moment, Mr Ebert.
MISS RAHMAN: My Lord, I have spoken to my instructing solicitor. She was at court at 9 o'clock and was told she would not be given anything until she was in court.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Could you speak up a little bit?
MISS RAHMAN: I am sorry, my Lord. The only thing that I have and my instructing solicitor has is the copy of the draft judgment----
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Well that was what was available, I am talking about the draft order which the Attorney-General sought from the court----
MISS RAHMAN: I do not have a copy of it.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: ----which was annexed to the application, which I would have hoped that counsel instructed by the Treasury Solicitor on handing judgment had been provided with by the Treasury Solicitor or by Mr Garnham.
MISS RAHMAN: My Lord, no. What my instructing solicitor tells me is that at 9 o'clock this morning she was told that nothing would be received until being in court this morning and that appears to be the case.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: So far as the order is concerned, the order discussed with counsel at the hearing, paragraph 1, as it is:
"Save for the purpose of attending the hearing of an application for which the court has granted permission or otherwise with the permission of the court, Mr Ebert is forbidden until further order from entering the premises of the Royal Courts of Justice.
(2) Save for the purpose of making-
(a) an application for permission to make application or commence or continue proceedings pursuant to the civil proceedings order made on 7th July 2000 or
(b) an application for permission under paragraph 1 hereof or under paragraph 3 hereof, Mr Ebert is forbidden until further order from telephoning, faxing, e-mailing or in any other way communicating with any judge, employee of the court or any other person in the Royal Courts of Justice in respect of any civil proceedings, whether personally or through his servants or agent.
(3) Permission to both parties to apply for the discharge of this order.
(4) Any application pursuant to this order or pursuant to the civil proceedings order is to be made in writing without notice to any other party, under cover of a letter addressed to the Court Manager of the Bankruptcy and Companies Court and to be determined in writing or after oral arguments as directed by the court."
Finally, (5), which we discussed with Mr Garnham, Mr Keith and Mr Ebert at the hearing, a new form of words: "If any claim form, application notice or other notice which is within the scope of this order is sent to or filed with the court otherwise than in accordance with paragraph (4), such claim form, application notice or other notice shall be of no effect."
Mr Ebert, that is the order that at present we propose to make, subject to any observations that you may wish to make.
MR EBERT: Yes, I have got a few observations. First of all, I want to make an observation about the judgment and I want to notify the court that paragraph 4 of the judgment is inaccurate, if I use nice language.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Yes, well you have given us that notification.
MR EBERT: This is untrue because there was no assignment of any judgment of me.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Mr Ebert, we are not going to permit you to reopen----
MR EBERT: No, I am not opening-----
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: ----which you have raised a large number of times before.
MR EBERT: So the court should be aware if this will be published as this is, I will take advice what I can do because the court has been notified.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Very well, that is paragraph 4.
MR EBERT: Secondly, the court has come to the conclusion, whatever it is and I did not have time enough to consider the judgment because there is enough things to consider.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: It would normally be given as an oral judgment under the old regime.
MR EBERT: The main point that the court want to rely is paragraph 37.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Paragraph 7?
MR EBERT: 37.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Yes.
MR EBERT: That the whole issue is because the conduct of Mr Ebert accusing Neuberger J and disturbing his proceedings in court.
May I tell, first of all the court has not any evidence to this effect whatsoever and the court have accepted it. Second point, I want to inform the court, because the court had written this in the judgment but not in the right form as it is. I am handing over here a letter from the Vice-Chancellor that happened between the hearing and today and this letter is - I don't know if it is known to this court - has in pure English removed Neuberger J from the case and additionally I would like to add on that yesterday afternoon at 4 o'clock Neuberger J had confirmed to me in a hearing - had confirmed to me in a hearing that he has been removed outside London, so to be far away from this area. Secondly, Neuberger J apologised in court for his conduct against me or towards me in the last four years.
Now the result of this letter, what you have got here from the Attorney-General - from the Vice-Chancellor is that the whole issue is going to be reinvestigated and there must be some mileage in Mr Ebert. So in pure English there is an investigator judge has been appointed to the issues and to the conduct.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Mr Ebert, Neuberger J having been assigned to handle all cases apart from I think the ones which Laddie J handled or another judge handled for four years is now the Chancery High Court judge on the Midland and Oxford Circuit. He is therefore not available to handle your cases and Patten J has been appointed to handle them in future.
MR EBERT: Fine, I accept it and I say it, but there must be a reason behind it. Anyhow, there is a new judge to investigate it.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: No, there is a new judge appointed in relation to any applications that you may wish to make in future. Full stop.
MR EBERT: Secondly, in the meantime I have received a court order dated 30 September and I would like to hand it over, because this is important to the issue. This is a court order. This court order made it very clear that Mr Ebert is not a judgment debtor to the claim from Mr Ralph Wolff.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: That is a matter you can raise with Patten J. We made it completely clear that if you have got any new points you could raise them with Patten J. What the Attorney-General was complaining about was your conduct in conducting litigation----
MR EBERT: I will put my points and his Lordship will decide, but I am allowed to put my points.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: That is paragraph 37?
MR EBERT: Yes.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: What other points have you got?
MR EBERT: The next point is his Lordship has made it very clear in paragraph 42 that in principle this is an issue of contempt of court. Now I would refer his Lordship that this court has no jurisdiction to make the order, and I would refer to the case before Lawton, Slade and Buckley LJJ in the Fletcher case, well-known, from 11th June 1984 and may I read please the paragraph refer to this decision that the same applies to this. It follows that a - because it is a contempt of court matter and not jurisdiction of this court, it follows that the proceedings before the Divisional Court were a nullity. The application of the Attorney-General has never been heard. It will be heard not by the Divisional Court, by a single judge and in this case it should be the Crown Court provided and it follows that on the issue of jurisdiction, but not on the merits, this appeal must be allowed.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Well, Mr Ebert this court has given judgment.
MR EBERT: I know.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: If you consider that you have got a point which might interest a higher court, then that is a point which you can take to them.
MR EBERT: I am allowed to introduce to this court that any orders that will be made is without jurisdiction. I am allowed to do it. If I do it in a further step that's another issue, but I am allowed to----
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Show us this judgment.
MR EBERT: Please. ( Same handed ) ( Pause )
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Mr Ebert, this is a matter, if there is anything in it, you would have to take to the Court of Appeal or wherever. Mr Ebert, whatever may have been said in 1984 in a judgment to which you did not draw our attention when you made submissions earlier, that concerned a technical point under section 42 of the Supreme Court Act. Since then, since that judgment of the Court of Appeal, in relation to section 42 the Divisional Court has regularly exercised jurisdiction and I imagine that the rules have been changed in order to ensure they have got jurisdiction. In any event----
MR EBERT: I accept it.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: ----we are now in the regime of the Civil Procedure Rules, so whatever might have been the provision under the old Rules of the Supreme Court, I cannot see that this is a point which (inaudible).
MR EBERT: I understand where his Lordship is coming from and I accept that there is a change because of this in the section 42. We are not dealing with the section 42. we are dealing with the application to forbid me to use the public toilet. So this is a question if the court has got jurisdiction. If the court wants to take control of their own proceeding it should have been by the Chancery Division or Queen's Bench Division, but in this case his Lordship has clearly made in the judgment that this is a contempt of court matter and a criminal (inaudible). So this is still applying this judgment. There is no change to this effect, neither in the CPR nor in the (inaudible). ( Pause )
I would like to end on a point which his Lordship has said to make it clear, because I have again been accused by his Lordship. I had made it clear in my application that this court has no jurisdiction. I could not bring this point before I had read the judgment. So I did make the point that the court has not got jurisdiction. So it is not a new point, but the court has ignored my point. Now that I read the judgment and it is not more than an half an hour and did not have enough time to study the judgment, I am allowed to bring it to support - because his Lordship has based the judgment on contempt of court proceeding----
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Mr Ebert, what I propose to do is to direct that the order not be drawn up within 14 days, to direct that counsel for the Attorney-General may have the opportunity within the next seven days to make written submissions to the court on the point, and we will then make a ruling in writing on this point. If we are satisfied that your submissions have force then we may convene another hearing; if we are satisfied that they have no force we will direct that the order be drawn up.
MR EBERT: Very good. This brings me to the next point, exactly. So now I have got a request, an application to this court. If the court is minded to make this order, as a result of the new events since the hearing and today (a) Neuberger J apology. The Attorney apology to me for the proceedings and they are now in process and the Treasury Solicitor is here to affirm that they have got instruction to give me the papers because issues has to be dealt with on the section 42, they can confirm it here, they have got instruction. They apologise for the conduct of their conduct.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: You are asking them to apologise for their conduct?
MR EBERT: No, they did it on the telephone and in writing also. Yes. They did it. And I will come to this point after the hearing because there is another issue here.
Thirdly, as this matter and the court has accepted is going to be heard by another judge, that this - if an order is made, it should be deferred until the conclusion of the new judge. This is a very legitimate question.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: (Inaudible) new judge if you go on making applications as frequently as you made them to Neuberger J there will be no conclusion.
MR EBERT: No, I am not making many applications, I am making one. And if his Lordship wants to be more precisely I got this morning in the post, and I did not have time to read it, acceptance from the petitioner to annul the bankruptcy, acceptance from the Official Receiver to annul the bankruptcy because it is based on forgery. But this is not the matters here, my Lord. My only request is - and I am asking the court to defer. Nothing will happen, I did not kill nobody and I am not intending to kill, what I did say last time that I might make citizen's arrest outside the court has gone for the moment. This is the issue for the criminal court to deal with it. I am not going - I did not disturb the coffee shop, I did not disturb the toilet and I am not disturbing nobody. So my application is to defer, if the court is minded after the point his Lordship said will be considered, to defer it until (a) the issue should be heard by the new appointed judge; secondly, until I will be heard by an appeal court. That is all (inaudible). I am giving undertaking. I did not hurt nobody, I did not defame nobody and I did not make any person in this house, yes, without reasons any accuses and I can bring witnesses each and everyone here. So I am asking only to defer it if the court.
Secondly, as I understood from his Lordship's order, according to his Lordship's order I am not even entitled to put skeletons in, I am not allowed to communicate with anybody. So this cannot be right. If I can't write a letter or bring skeletons to the listing office, if I can't go to the technical recorder, that is what the order is. I don't know if it is constitution----
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: The grounds for your application in writing can be set out in your application.
MR EBERT: But I am entitled to go into court to put application
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Mr Ebert, we have read out the order which we propose to make, we heard submissions about it. You may have - within the next seven days you may set out in writing any further submissions supported by any further documents you wish to see and we will consider those submissions.
MR EBERT: Fine. If this is the case, my Lord----
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: A copy of anything you send to us to the Treasury Solicitor.
MR EBERT: I accept. But I have - his Lordship has accepted last time that no hearing will take place without consulting with me because of the Jewish holidays.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Without what?
MR EBERT: Without consulting with me the date because of the Jewish holidays. Now his Lordship is asking me seven days. I can't do it, I am going - as I have been yesterday refused a house from this court and I am homeless I have go away for the Jewish holiday. So I will not be back before the 16th.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: The 16th of what?
MR EBERT: 16th October. This is Jewish holidays. And I can't put my submission----
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Then the solution seems to be that we should make the temporary order as from now, it will not really affect you if you are going to be away, and it will mean that the court offices will not have telephone calls and you can have a longer period if you are going to be away.
MR EBERT: I am not going to do it anyhow, but I don't think why the order should be made before everything shall clarified. I don't see a reason. What is the rush about the order?
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: To stop you making these telephone calls.
MR EBERT: To stop me making telephone calls, why? First of all I am not doing it, but why the order for that effect. It's not good enough that I am saying that I am not here? Why an order, just to defame me? ( Pause )
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Our present view is that you should raise anything that you wish to raise in - or seek to wish to raise in the Court of Appeal.
MR EBERT: But his Lordship has said that within seven days I should put my points before any decision.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: You have now told us that you are going to be away and not going to be available.
MR EBERT: It is not my fault because I am homeless.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: It is the fault of your conduct, Mr Ebert.
MR EBERT: It's not my conduct, the court has not got any proof. But even so, I could have done it it would be normal days. The court has to take into account the Jewish holidays.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: We heard submissions last time. We did not make the order there and then because we wanted to have time to think about whether we should make an order.
MR EBERT: And what happened in the meantime that is the pressure? Nothing happened, I don't think the court has got any information of any misconduct in the meantime. To the contrary I think, the court heard that I was (inaudible).
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: I can see no end to this.
MR EBERT: I accept because Newman J said in court, in open court in this court, the (inaudible), the behaviour of Mr Ebert is very civilised and I have to accept it. And this also happened after his hearing. I have got evidence to this effect so I don't see what is the rush here. I'm only saying his Lordship says that he wants to get a view from the other side about the points that I raise, fair enough.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Is there any other point you wish to raise, Mr Ebert?
MR EBERT: Yes, to have the chance to put my points after receiving the answer from the Attorney-General or from the - on this point; yes? I shall have the chance to put it and it should be heard in this court after 16th October as Jewish holidays and I am entitled to my religious (inaudible). That is all. And there is enough circumstances where the court has got so many things to deal with the Ebert at the moment, and I think his Lordship has got another issue to deal today, but I received the 'phone calls, but have got it in writing that it should be dealt today, this is all in a civilised manner. So there is no reason for a rush until the court will establish if they have got jurisdiction to make the order and the points that I raise. Thank you very much. And I want to go away and to have my Jewish holiday, at least if I haven't got a home, peace and quiet and I will get justice and I promise his Lordship justice will prevail after the Jewish holiday in a very civilised manner and according to the English law, and according to the CPR. And nothing else except and according to the rules and law in a civilised matter. I will get justice. Thank you very much.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Do you have any observations you wish to make?
MISS RAHMAN: My Lord, only this. Clearly there is a point that has been raised from the case that has been handed up to you which is a 1984 case. Clearly the Attorney-General has not had any notice of that. It is obviously a matter for your Lordships whether or not you are going to allow another opportunity, and mention was made of a seven-day time limit with 14 days for our response. My Lord, all I can say is if there are going to be new points raised, we would wish for the opportunity to at least have look at the case and the point being raised. It is a matter for your Lordships, but from our point of view it does appear that the order you have made is fairly final and any new point should really seem to have some merit before it was allowed in at is this late stage.
So, my Lord, in those circumstances we would oppose this application for further submissions, but if you allow it we would ask for a reasonable time.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Very well, we will rise.
MR EBERT: It is not further submissions, If I may say. It's not further submissions.
( Short adjournment )
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: This is a matter in which we heard argument last term and delivered judgment today. We made the judgment available to the parties to read from 9 o'clock onwards. Under the old regime of course we would have given an oral judgment. We discussed the form of the order with the parties when we conducted the hearing.
Today Mr Ebert has raised in effect two different points. The first is that he has referred us to the decision of the Court of Appeal in Re Fletcher , Court of Appeal transcript, 11th June 1984 in which, as the Act and the rules then stood, the Court of Appeal held that a single judge should have heard an application in relation to a vexatious litigant under section 42 of the Supreme Court Act 1981.
We are now satisfied that that has been corrected by Rule 94(15) of what is now the Supreme Court Rules which provides:
"Every application to the High Court by the Attorney-General under section 42 of the Supreme Court Act 1981 shall be heard and determined by the Divisional Court."
Mr Ebert seeks to argue that even though that has been changed, a Divisional Court does not have jurisdiction to hear an application for an injunction which is not covered by Rule 15. It appears to us that this is a matter which Mr Ebert should seek permission to take elsewhere. We are not willing to hold up the perfection of our order today.
Mr Ebert also sought to raise a number of new points in relation to events which have happened since the hearing. He maintains that the Vice-Chancellor has appointed a different High Court judge to conduct an inquiry into all the matters of which he made complaint. He maintains that he has received orders or letters in relation to these matters and he has sought to persuade us to delay the perfection of our order until he has had an opportunity to make further submissions in relation to these matters.
So far as the first point he raises is concerned, Neuberger J has now been assigned to other duties by the Vice-Chancellor and Patten J has been assigned, as we recorded in our judgment, to handle any further applications Mr Ebert may seek to make. As we made clear in our judgment, if Mr Ebert has any genuinely new points he can make them to Patten J, and Patten J may make such direction as he considers appropriate and may make such order as he considers appropriate for dealing with those matters.
What the Attorney-General complained of was Mr Ebert's conduct up to the time in July when we heard this application. We were satisfied that the way that he conducted his litigation was such that he should be restrained in the way which the Attorney-General sought, that he should not be barred from all access to a court for that would be unconstitutional and contrary to Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, but that his conduct had been such that he ought to be restrained.
Having considered carefully the submissions Mr Ebert has made to us this morning, we are satisfied that we should direct today that the order be drawn up today and that if he has any complaint about this order he should seek permission to raise it with some other court on some other occasion.
We direct that the order be drawn up with immediate effect.
MR EBERT: Can I please ask leave to appeal?
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: What I suggest Mr Ebert is that you consider the judgment, and we are going to give you the opportunity of considering the judgment, annexing to it such documents as you wish to annex and we are willing to give you a period until the end of October to do that so that you can have you holiday and we will then consider that application in writing.
MR EBERT: So I should make application to this court?
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: To this court first.
MR EBERT: So will it be effective in the order please that I can make this application?
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Yes, liberty to Mr Ebert to apply in writing to this court for permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal, provided that such application be submitted in writing with any supporting documents to the Court Office of the Administrative Court on or before 31st October.
MR EBERT: Yes, now is this order in the meantime suspended until this date, please?
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: No. ( Pause )
No, we have made our order. It is now a question of whether you should be allowed to appeal the order.
MR EBERT: Well, I can't appeal for the moment as long as I am not making the application to this court. So there is no use for an appeal. I will make application to this court, as his Lordship has directed and then we can go from there.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: We have made the order, Mr Ebert.
MR EBERT: What about the putting skeletons and all these things?
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: What about what?
MR EBERT: Putting skeletons, all papers to the court and joining my wife to hearings.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Your wife is not a party to these proceedings.
MR EBERT: No, to court proceedings. I want to join her. So I am not allowed to go in?
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: You can make whatever application you like to Patten J. If your wife under the provisions of her Grepe v Loam order wishes to make applications to the court, as permitted by the Grepe v Loam order she may do so and it is a matter for Patten J to decide how to regulate it.
MR EBERT: My question is if I can join her to the hearings.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Which hearings?
MR EBERT: My wife's hearings?
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Join who to them?
MR EBERT: To be with her at the hearings.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: That you can be joined to your wife's hearings?
MR EBERT: No, just to come to the court, to be in the courtroom where the hearings are I want to know?
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: No.
MR EBERT: I am not allowed to go in?
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: No.
MR EBERT: Will it be clear in the order also?
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Sorry?
MR EBERT: Will it be clear in the order please?
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Will you allow me....?
MR EBERT: Will it please be clear in the order that I am not allowed to be in the courtroom where my wife has got application.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: No, we have made the order under (1). You are forbidden from entering the premises of the Royal Courts of Justice.
MR EBERT: I can now give a statement to this court and I promise this court, despite my points that I will make to this judgment, that when I come back each and every judgment refer in this judgment will be application made by me to set it aside as fraud, because this was published. Because each and every judgment, and this declaration should be noted, each and every judgment is a fraud.
Now the last question, can I please ask a transcript of this proceeding?
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: I can see no necessity for it at all, Mr Ebert.
MR EBERT: But I need it.
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: You may make your submissions - you have heard what we have said and you may make your submissions in writing in the way that we have allowed.