England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
DIVISIONAL COURT

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2A 2LL
		24 May 2005

1. LOD JUSTICE BROOKE: On 11 and 12 July 2001 when I was sitting in this court with Harrison J, we heard an application by the Attorney-General that injunctive relief should be granted against the defendant, Gedaljahu Ebert, in an unprecedented form. Since the middle of the 1990s Mr Ebert had been involved in a torrent of litigation arising out of the collapse of a company called Europride Ltd. The judges of the Chancery Division did their best to control him by recourse to Grepe v Loam orders, and in due course a novel four of them extended Grepe v Loam order. On 7 July 2000 this court made a Civil Proceedings Order against him under section 42 of the Supreme Court Act 1981, directing him to be treated as a vexatious litigant without limit of time.
2. This did not curb Mr Ebert's litigious ardour, and at the hearing in July 2001 we were persuaded to make an order against him in still wider terms. We handed down our judgment on 21 September 2001 (see Attorney-General v Ebert [2001] EWHC Admin 695; [2002] 2 All ER 789) and the order we made then restricted Mr Ebert to making written applications in future, which would be dealt with in writing. It also prohibited him from entering the precincts of the Royal Courts of Justice except for the purpose of attending a hearing which a judge had expressly permitted him to attend. We made this order for a period of three years in the first instance, with liberty to the Attorney-General to apply thereafter if, as events turned out, an extension of the duration of the injunction proved to be necessary.
3. The present application was made on 24 August 2004. The principal relief which the Attorney-General seeks can be summarised in this way:

(i) the order dated 21 September 2001 should be further extended;

(ii) an order should be made restraining Mr Ebert from corresponding or in any way communicating with any judge or officer of the Court Service in an insulting or abusive manner;

(iii) an order should be made restraining Mr Ebert from making any application at all under section 42 of the Supreme Court Act 1981 to institute any proceedings or make any application concerning, relating to, or in any way, whether directly or indirectly, touching upon his bankruptcy (by order dated 22 July 1997) or the proceedings leading thereto, the validity of the assignment (dated 22 June 1996) and/or the judgment debt on which his bankruptcy was based, the appointment or conduct of his trustee in bankruptcy or the repossession or sale of 23 Cranbourne Gardens, London NW11."

4. Interim orders were made in September 2004 and February 2005 by which the terms of the original injunction were continued in effect until after judgment on this application.
5. The Attorney-General considered that it would be a matter for the court to decide how long the relief referred to in (i) and (iii) above should last, should we be disposed to make an order in terms requested, although he suggested a minimum period of three years. If we were unwilling to grant the relief sought in (iii) above, he suggested an alternative order which would have the effect of rationing the number of applications Mr Ebert might make in relation to the identified matters.
6. The earlier history of this litigation, and the scale of the nuisance which Mr Ebert has presented to the courts and for those who have the misfortune of being respondents to this litigation, are clearly set out in the judgments of this court delivered on 7 July 2000 (COT 7 July 2000) which need to be read as essential background for the present judgment. Paragraph 20 of the judgment of Laws LJ shows that counsel for the Attorney-General was saying that Mr Ebert's conduct had been demonstrably vexatious from July 1997 onwards. The history of the next three years, described in paragraphs 20-42 of that judgment, speak for themselves. In paragraph 45 Laws LJ said that in large measure Mr Ebert's stance in response to the current application had been constituted by an attempt to re-run his long-standing complaints on their merits, an attempt he described as a "hopeless enterprise". Paragraphs 48-50 of that judgment deserve repeating in full. They read as follows:

"Conclusion on the merits

48. Mr Ebert is wholly obsessed with his complaints about the events surrounding the Midland Bank's judgment, the assignment, and the earlier history relating to Europride. One can readily see how, initially, he felt he had been unjustly treated: his co-guarantor Mr Morris Wolff had escaped all liability to the Midland Bank because of his brother's intervention. But the legality of the arrangements relating to that, and in particular to the assignment of the bank's judgment debt to Mr Ralph Wolff, were decided long ago; indeed they have been decided many times. Mr Ebert's repeated attempts to open it up all over again constitute, in my view, a very extreme instance of vexatious litigation.

49. Mr Ebert's obsessions have cut him away from reality, and he is, unfortunately, entirely unable to appreciate the hopelessness of any further process he may commence to challenge the judgment, assignment, or bankruptcy order; to say nothing of his past actions. That is a misfortune, for it means that he will leave this court with an aggravated sense of injustice; but it is a melancholy fact that that is usually the case with truly vexatious litigants. This case, however, is to my mind extreme by reason of two factors. The first is the sheer scale of Mr Ebert's persistence. The Treasury Solicitor on the Attorney's behalf despite best efforts has been unable to log or record all the applications which Mr Ebert has made. By now it may be into the hundreds. The second is that although Mr Ebert is entirely deluded as to the merits of all the kaleidoscopic features of his case, he has in my judgment acted not only misguidedly, but - being the intelligent and resourceful man which he undoubtedly is - also maliciously, in some dimensions of this wretched tale. His applications to commit Mr Rabinowicz and Mr Osuntokun are one instance. His assertion of forgery of the bank statement when it was resurrected before Laddie J in January 2000 is another: he knew perfectly well that the accusation had been gone into by Rimer J, armed with the original document.

50. Mr Ebert's vexatious proceedings have in my judgment been very damaging to the public interest: quite aside from the oppression they have inflicted on his adversaries. It is wholly lamentable that Neuberger J should have been required to spend what must have amounted to hundreds of hours of working time preparing for and dealing with Mr Ebert's grotesquely unmeritorious applications. The point is not merely one of sympathy for the particular judge (though if I may say so I regard Neuberger J's sure and certain patience in this whole saga as wholly admirable). Judges have to hear and decide whatever cases are properly listed before them; and, as Laddie J has pointed out, given that Mr Ebert was going to make these applications it was desirable, however burdensome, that they be consistently listed before Neuberger J who from an early stage had a close acquaintance with the detailed facts. Had they been listed randomly before different judges, the waste of time would surely have been all the greater. The real vice here, apart from the vexing of Mr Ebert's opponents, is that scarce and valuable judicial resources have been extravagantly wasted on barren and misconceived litigation, to the detriment of other litigants with real cases to try. It is trite but true that a s.42 order is draconian. That is why the court examines cases like this with particular scrutiny. In this instance, the public interest urgently requires that Mr Ebert be comprehensively barred from the doors of the civil courts. I think, moreover, that this conclusion is reinforced, although on the facts any reinforcement is certainly unnecessary, by the terms of the overriding objective stated in CPR 1."

In a brief supporting judgment Silber J said that he agreed that Mr Ebert's conduct on seeking repeatedly to relitigate points was "a very extreme instance of vexatious litigation". He later said that the Attorney-General's case was "uniquely strong".

7. The reason why the Attorney-General had to return to this court a year later are set out in paragraphs 11-18 of my judgment dated 21 September 2001. In short, Mr Ebert had made at least 151 applications to the court for permission to issue fresh proceedings or applications in existing proceedings, and all had been dismissed because they were without merit and generally repetitive of previous applications. He had made at least 20 applications for permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal, all of which had been refused. Sometimes his wife made applications in connection with the same general subject matter. At one time he adopted a practice of requesting that his application should be dealt with by the judge (usually Neuberger J) immediately or within 24 hours of his making them. He accepted that on up to ten occasions the security staff or the court tipstaff had been called to remove him from Neuberger J's court at the request of the judge, his clerk or his court usher.
8. He wrote letters to Neuberger J accusing him of being corrupt and having accepted bribes. His complaints about the judge's conduct became more and more shrill as time went on, and on one occasion he and his wife threatened to call the police if a bankruptcy registrar did not hear an application immediately. On another he purported to arrest the barrister who had appeared against him on the basis that he had obtained a possession order by fraud and that he was entitled to make a citizen's arrest.
9. At paragraph 25 of my judgment I said that it was evident that at the heart of the Attorney-General's concerns was the worry that if Mr Ebert was not restrained in the way he sought, he would continue to visit the Royal Courts of Justice and disrupt proceedings or waste the time of the court staff by making requests that his multitudinous applications should be given precedence over other court business.
10. We were satisfied (see paragraph 41) that although the Grepe v Loam orders and the section 42 order had succeeded in taking the burden off the many other parties to the Europride saga whom he had plagued with unmeritorious litigation, there was a substantial risk that the proper administration of justice in the future would be seriously impaired if we did not make the order sought. At paragraph 40 I noted that a different High Court Judge had been appointed to deal with any further applications Mr Ebert might make, and I expressed the hope that Mr Ebert would desist in future from the intemperate abuse he has heaped on his predecessor.
11. The present application was supported by a witness statement made by Jane O'Connor, the Court Manager of the Bankruptcy and Companies Court, dated 17 August 2004, which was supported by four Lever arch files of documents evidencing Mr Ebert's activities since September 2001. These have now been supplemented by further files containing later correspondence to the court.
12. When Patten J took over from Neuberger J the responsibility for dealing with the applications Mr Ebert might make, he decided to convene a hearing at which Mr Ebert might air all the points he wished to make about the events of the mid-1990s which followed the Europride collapse in the context of applications which were then pending before the court. The hearing took place on 1 and 5 November 2001, and on 12 November Patten J delivered a long judgment in which he made rulings on the pending applications Mr Ebert had made in different divisions of the High Court. After dealing with each of these applications Mr Patten J ended his judgment by saying at paragraph 60:

"I have spent some time in this judgment analysing the contents of the various applications for permission in order to make it clear that Mr Ebert has failed to produce any new evidence or indeed any new arguments which might justify the issue of further proceedings. On the contrary each of the applications relies on essentially the same or similar points to those previously considered and rejected by the Courts. It cannot be right for any further court time to be spent on this matter. I was left at the end of the hearing before me with the clear impression that Mr Ebert has either lost touch with the realities of his position or is simply concerned to maintain a vendetta against those whom he regards as the architects of his bankruptcy regardless of the merits of his case and with no regard for the consequences for other court users."

13. During the course of his judgment Patten J recorded (at paragraph 26) that since March 1998, when the Court of Appeal dismissed all Mr Ebert's challenges to the bankruptcy order made against him in July 1997, he had made more than 200 further applications to set aside that order, or for associated relief, all of which had been dismissed.
14. Between the time of Patten J 's order and the time when Mrs O'Connor made her statement in August last year Mr Ebert made a further 37 applications in which he tried to challenge the bankruptcy order, or the validity of the appointment of the trustee in bankruptcy, or for associated relief. Patten J dismissed all of them on the grounds that they amount to the re-litigation of points already repeatedly decided against Mr Ebert. This did not persuade Mr Ebert to refrain from making further applications on which the judge made similar rulings. Unhappily, Mr Ebert has continued the tirade of abuse against the judge who handles his application which was a feature of the scene when Neuberger J filled that role, and he has now included Mrs O'Connor as a target for his abuse. In paragraphs 15-18 of her witness statement Mrs O'Connor described what has been happening these terms:

"15. There has also been extensive correspondence from Mr Ebert to Patten J (to which his Clerk has had to respond) and to myself, not limited to that necessary to make the numerous applications referred to. There have been many other letters, for example, purporting to make requests for correction of data pursuant to the Data Protection Act 1998, demanding production of documents which had previously been supplied to Mr Ebert, reiterating applications already determined by Patten J, seeking 'clarification' of rulings made by Patten J, or making serious but spurious allegations about Patten J and me. I am advised and believe that such correspondence, not confined to that necessary for the purpose of making applications pursuant to s.42, is in breach of the terms (specifically paragraph 2) of the Order of 21 September 2001.

16. In addition, much of the contents of Mr Ebert's correspondence has been abusive and insulting, mostly directed either at Patten J or myself. While I acknowledge that it is necessary to have a thick skin, at least to some extent, in doing the job that I do, and also in relation to the work of a Judge, much of Mr Ebert's correspondence is completely unacceptable. I personally have been caused concern by some of the allegations that have been made and it is quite unpleasant, and indeed occasionally distressing, to have to deal with it. One of the first examples of such correspondence, directed at Patten J, is Mr Ebert's letter of 12 December 2001, in which he called the Judge 'a liar', and invited him to take action in response. This is a recurring theme in this kind of correspondence from Mr Ebert. He appears to have been deliberately attempting to provoke an adverse reaction, such as the bringing of proceedings for contempt against him. By way of other examples (and there are many more instances than those I mention below), Mr Ebert has made the following accusations in his correspondence:-

(1) In his letter of 14 December 2001 to Patten J, he accused him of 'high treason'.

(2) In a letter dated 18 September 2001, Mr Ebert accused Patten J of 'perjury, 'bias, 'acting unreasonably', 'high treason' and 'perverting the due course of justice', alleged that he is 'not fit to sit as a Judge and in any event in any case and/or hearing relating to Ebert' and purported to request written confirmation that the Judge would not sit on any of Mr Ebert's cases.

(3) On 31 December 2001 Mr Ebert wrote to me, claiming that a crime had been recorded against Patten J on 19 December 2001 in respect of 'torture, pervert the due course of justice, theft, perjury', accusing him of being 'unreasonable, bias, corrupt and a liar' and asking that no hearing or application should be presented to Patten J in respect of Mr Ebert.

(4) In a letter dated 11 June 2002 to me, Mr Ebert made the most extraordinary comparison between the conduct of Court business under my management and the operation of the Nazi Gestapo.

(5) On 26 June 2002 Mr Ebert wrote to Patten J, (addressed 'To the Criminal, Mr Justice Patten'), alleging that his ruling of 13 June was 'an unlawful interference with the Court proceedings and statutory duty with the intention to avoid a crime shall come to light and justice and pervert the due course of justice', that he had 'abused his position as a judge' and was 'acting as a solicitor to defend a crime', suggesting that he had been bribed, accusing him of lying in his ruling, and continuing to demand redress pursuant to his application of 6 June. Mr Ebert also invited Patten J to take appropriate action if he believed that his letter was 'untrue and defamation, which amounts to contempt of court'.

(6) In a letter dated 9 July 2002 to me, Mr Ebert threatened me with criminal proceedings if I did not comply with his demands to amend an order which had been made.

(7) On 10 July 2002 Mr Ebert wrote to Patten J, alleging, in respect one of his Rulings, the production of 'an untrue and false document with the intention to defraud', 'high treason', 'aiding and abetting a crime (fraud, torture)', inviting him to take contempt and defamation proceedings, threatening to circulate the letter, demanding that the Judge will not deal in any of the Ebert family's matters, and stating 'Give up or Shut up!!!!!'.

(8) In a letter dated 6 November 2002, Mr Ebert accused me of being 'a member of the dark forces in this country'.

(9) On 16 January 2003 Mr Ebert wrote to me, referring to Patten J as 'the criminal Mr Justice Patten', insisting that he should have a hearing of his application on 2 January and threatening action against me personally.

(10)In an application dated 23 January 2003, Mr Ebert falsely accused Patten J of having admitted that he was 'abusing his power and position for private gain'. There was never any such admission, and of course no such conduct ever occurred. However, it is Mr Ebert's frequent practice to state at the end of his letters that if there was no response to them, the lack of response would be treated as an admission of the contents of Mr Ebert's letters. This stance is, of course, completely unreasonable, but appears to have led to Mr Ebert making this false allegation against Patten J.

(11)In a letter dated 27 November 2003 Mr Ebert made an allegation against Patten J, which he has since frequently repeated, that he was 'guilty of High Treason and is using the Court Service and facilities as his private business to produce false statements for private gain'.

(12)On 1 February 2004 Mr Ebert wrote to the Lord Chancellor and made a number of allegations about Patten J and me, for example, 'Re: Organised crime controlling the Chancery Division ... by members of the bench, Officers of the Court, who are assisting offenders', 'Member of the Judicial Bench of the Chancery Division who are using their position and court facilities to defraud and torture the public on a daily basis', 'On 14th January 2004 Mr Justice Patten had made an Order allowing his criminal associates to dispose of all the family assets, private belongings and family treasures, which has been collected for many hundreds of years, which I put a value of one billion pounds. I verily believe that Mr Justice Patten has a share in the profit of the "proceeds of crime"'. Mr Ebert purported to request that both Patten J and I should be suspended from duty.

17. There is, of course, not the slightest basis for any of Mr Ebert's allegations and none of them ought to have been made at all. As of the date of this statement I am still receiving correspondence from Mr Ebert of a similar nature to that described in paragraph 16 above.

18. I should emphasise that on numerous occasions the Clerk to Patten J (Mr Trout) wrote to Mr Ebert, no doubt at the learned Judge's request, asking that all correspondence should be routed through Mr Trout, and none of it sent to me. I was grateful for these interventions on my behalf, but unfortunately none of them had any effect on Mr Ebert's conduct, and he continued to write to me in the same way and in the same vein as before."

15. As if this was not enough, Mr Ebert also made so many unsuccessful applications in the criminal courts in respect of the same subject matter that on 13 July 2004 this court made a criminal proceedings order against him under section 42 of the Supreme Court Act 1981 as well. In paragraph 53 of the witness statement made in support of that application Mr Holder, who is a solicitor in the Treasury Solicitor's Department, said:

"[I]t is clear from the written decisions of a number of the judges who have been required to deal with Mr Ebert's applications that they all arise directly from the same grievances which he formerly pursued in the civil courts. It would appear from the chronology as though Mr Ebert only turned to the criminal law when his journey through the civil courts was finally ended. As such, his attempts to pursue these grievances through the criminal courts represent merely the most recent manifestation of a campaign that is now almost ten years old."

16. Mr Tolley, who appeared for the Attorney-General, supplemented his written submissions by making succinct oral submissions. We are satisfied that he furnished the court with all the information and documents it required in order to deal with this application justly, and we reject Mr Ebert's submissions that the application was not properly constituted because we did not receive a chronology or a list of issues or an up-to-date skeleton arguments and so on. More particularly, we reject Mr Ebert's contention that the Attorney-General was obliged to adduce at the hearing of this application a number of documents which relate to the matters which he has already litigated so many times in the past. The function of the Divisional Court on these occasions, when the need to restrain a vexatious litigant is in question, is not to revisit the merits of all the disputes he has litigated unsuccessfully in the past (see Attorney-General v Jones [1990] 1 WLR 859), and we eventually had to tell Mr Ebert we would no longer hear him when he persisted in attempting to draw us back into issues relating to the validity of certain matters most of which occurred more than seven years ago.
17. We also reject Mr Ebert's contention that if we were to grant the Attorney-General the relief he seeks, or any of it, we would be granting servants of the Crown an immunity from wrongdoing or we would be depriving him of any fundamental human right. It is now well established that the court is entitled to protect its own processes from abuse, and on this occasion the abuse of which the Attorney-General makes complaint is represented by Mr Ebert's refusal ever to take "no" for an answer, and his persistently making applications to the court which simply cover over and over again matters which have already been decided against him.
18. I for my part am wholly satisfied that the September 2001 injunction must be continued in order to protect the staff and judges of the court from any repetition of the conduct in which Mr Ebert indulged before that order was made.
19. I am also satisfied that the intemperate language which Mr Ebert has used in his communications with the court must be restrained in the manner which the Attorney-General suggests. For a precedent for such an order, see the judgment of the Court of Appeal in Mahajan v Waldman [2003] EWCA Civ 1899.
20. I am further satisfied that there is nothing in the European Convention on Human Rights or otherwise in our national law to prevent this court from now putting an end to any applications which Mr Ebert might otherwise wish to make to it in respect of any aspect of the Europride saga. The Strasbourg Court has made it clear that there is nothing in Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights which prevents a court from being able to regulate its process, so long as the very essence of a litigant's right of access to the court is not extinguished.
21. The history set out in this judgment and in the three earlier judgments in 2000 and 2001 to which I have referred have shown that the courts of this country have been very patient in considering every point which Mr Ebert has asked them to consider over the last eight years - and it will be remembered that his conduct was being stigmatised as vexatious as early as July 1997. Nobody who read the six files of correspondence which are before the court could think that it was reasonable for the courts to have to continue considering the merits of renewed challenges to the legal validity of those far off events. Sadly, Mr Ebert has shown himself this morning to be just as obsessed with those matters as he was when Laws LJ gave judgment about him five years ago. Any litigation he tried to start now in relation to any of these matters would inevitably be statute-barred. Against the tiny risk that Mr Ebert might be able to identify any genuinely new matter which might persuade a court to take the wholly exceptional course of reconsidering the merits of a direction it had made eight or nine years ago must be set the immense nuisance which Mr Ebert's persistently vexatious and unmeritorious litigation has presented to the courts over the years.
22. For these reasons I would grant the Attorney-General the relief he seeks. I would also make our new orders without limit of time. It is always open to any litigant to invite a court to consider setting aside an order of this kind if he can satisfy the court that circumstances have generally altered. Mr Ebert has shown by his conduct today that there is at present very little prospect of his being willing to change his ways, so obsessed is he still with the events of what I have called the Europride saga.
23. It is also clear that some control must be maintained over any other applications Mr Ebert may wish to make in future in relation to other matters and I would make an additional order in these terms: (i) that the defendant is restrained without limit of time from making any other application for leave under section 42 of the Supreme Court Act 1981 in relation to any matter which gave rise to a cause of action more than six years before the said application for leave was made; and (ii) that any applications he may in future make may only be presented to the court once the first half of each calender year and once in the second half.
24. This would enable the court to deal in an orderly manner at one and the same time in each half of each calendar year with any applications Mr Ebert may wish to make. He has disqualified himself by his conduct from being allowed to make applications at any time.
25. Mr Ebert referred us in his submissions to the Data Protection Act and the Freedom from Information Act. The court, so far as I am aware, holds no data on Mr Ebert which will be disclosable under the Data Protection Act, and section 14 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 provides that section 1(1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the request is vexatious. I am satisfied that any request that Mr Ebert might make to the courts under the Freedom of Information Act has been and would be vexatious, simply designed to re-open the matters which must now be regarded as closed so far as litigation is concerned. I would therefore make at the end of the direction an order with effect that if any application or correspondence, including for the avoidance of doubt any application for data under the Data Protection Act or for information under the Freedom of Information Act, which is prohibited by this order is sent to or filed with the court, such application and correspondence should be of no effect, and no action should be taken in relation to it.
26. For these reasons I will grant orders in the terms which I have set out and I will hand down copies now, and after Mitting J has given his judgment I will consider the terms of the order with counsel.
27. MR JUSTICE MITTING: I agree.
28. THE APPLICANT: My Lord, I am very thankful for the judgment and I want to set out that I'm not saying "no" to your judgment. I say "yes" to the judgment. And I'm very happy with the judgment because at least the judgment has clarified the position. What I'm asking the court is that a statement in the judgment should be reflected in the order - should be reflected in the order so any person doesn't have to study the judgment, can only look at the order. Your Lordship has stated in the judgment that the assignment was on the human right length. I'm happy with this decision and I'm over the moon with it. At least I heard it now clearly and I know what I have to do if I got any opportunity. Therefore I would ask nicely to state in the order that I say "yes" to the judgment. I asked the details of this judgment or the essence of it should be stated in the order.
29. The other thing that I would ask your Lordship, I'm asking for transcript of the proceedings and the judgment on the public purse because all my assets have been sold, and I shall be able to consider if there's any merits to make any application. I need to read the judgment, therefore I'm asking for the transcript of the judgment and the proceedings.
30. The next point, what I would like to ask, I understand that the order has been made or decided to be made, which I'm not opposing, I'm asking for leave to appeal if I need.
31. LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: That is inconsistent with your saying that you say "yes" to the judgment.
32. THE APPLICANT: Yes, my Lord, I come to this point now we coming to the appeal. We got the order. We got the judgment. Now, I want to appeal the decision in this order. Yes, of course, I have been restrained from actions or defamed by being a vexatious litigant or a violent person as a result of the finding. So I want to put the points why I'm asking for leave to appeal on the order made by this court.
33. Number 1 - this order is incompatible in fundamental human right and English law. I will also ask for the purpose of clarification to the order not to be accused of breaching the order or having a ground. I'm handing over His Lordship a document which I'm using and will use and want to use under my statutory right and a clear clarification that this including the order is excluded. Can I please hand over to you, and the court should decide is this not included in the order to get data information, or does it include. (Documents handed) (After a pause)
34. The other point I would like to raise on ground of appeal. Can I please invite His Lordship to take volume 3 of the documents.
35. LOD JUSTICE BROOKE: Volume 3 of which?
36. THE APPLICANT: Of the Attorney-General papers.
37. LOD JUSTICE BROOKE: JAC 2, or 3?
38. THE APPLICANT: JAC 2, volume 3.
39. LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Page?
40. THE APPLICANT: Page 651. The grounds of appeal that I'm asking, or I will put forward, the court has decided that the assignment is on the Europride debt. Neuberger J decided that the debt is of Mr Ebert, not of Europride. Now, a debt on assignment on a Europride debt in liquidation is null and void according to section 1(7) of the Insolvency Act, and this was found by the court. Therefore, as the court came to the conclusion that the assignment is on the Europride debt I'm entitled to appeal this order to restrain me which has become now come clear that I was right all along that there is no valid assignment. I will continue. This has been decided by the Lord Chief Justice in the judgment 30 March 1999. Woolf LJ said clearly if the assignment is not valid in law clearly the bankruptcy order ought not to have been made. The finding today of the court has clarified the position which I was fighting over the years that the assignment is on a purported debt of a joined and several debt in a liquidated company. I have never received such a statutory demand and would if I received is not valid under section 267 of the Insolvency Act. Section 267 state clearly that the court has got all documentation.
41. LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Mr Ebert, we have told you that you should not open these matters.
42. THE APPLICANT: I am giving you the ground for appeal.
43. LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: And we have heard the point that you want to make for the ground for permission to appeal.
44. THE APPLICANT: But I will have to give the grounds, my Lord, so I am not now discussing. As I say, I am happy with the finding and I am over the moon with it. I just want to say what the grounds of my appeals are in law, let's put it this way.
45. LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: You are saying that we should have allowed you to re-open these old matters.
46. THE APPLICANT: No, I didn't say that. I say now the court today have decided that I am relitigating and the court made a finding that the assignment on which the bankruptcy order is made is on the Europride debt. That was the decision today. I'm not arguing with that, but this is ---
47. LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: You know perfectly well we made no decision in relation to the merits. All we are making decisions about is your future behaviour.
48. THE APPLICANT: About the assignment, excuse me, my Lord.
49. LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Mr Ebert, do you have any new point you want to make in support of your application for permission?
50. THE APPLICANT: Yes, the point is I am asking that the decision, finding made today on the merits decided in this court, should be reflected in the order, namely, that the assignment on which purported bankruptcy is based is on the Europride debt or Europride saga. Secondly, that I'm asking for transcript for -- I'm repeating myself I know, but I'm just concentrating -- the judgment of the proceedings and for leave to appeal on the basis of this decision. That's all. And to the (inaudible) because in the exhibits made here provided by the Attorney-General there is a finding and decision on which His Lordship rely, say the debt is Europride -- Ebert debt, not Europride clearly. That's the reason I'm entitled and want leave to appeal. Thank you very much.
51. LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Is there any matter you want to raise?
52. MR TOLLEY: There is obviously no prospect of success at all, let alone a real prospect of success in relation to an appeal.
53. LOD JUSTICE BROOKE: And there is nothing on the terms of the order that you would wish to ---
54. MR TOLLEY: Not as to the terms of the order. I only have three suggestions. The first is that in the fourth paragraph at the end of it where it says "any application may in future only be presented" and so forth, I thought for the avoidance of doubt it might perhaps say "and only in accordance with the order of 21 September 2001", just to make sure that that is clear beyond any question, so that the procedure stipulated in the order of September 2001 is incorporated into that reference. The second matter is just to insert the dates of the two statutes referred to in the last paragraphs which are respectively 1996 and 2000.
55. LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: What point did you want to make about dates?
56. MR TOLLEY: That the statutes that are referred to in the last paragraph, just insert them.
57. LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: What dates are you giving us?
58. MR TOLLEY: They are 1996 and 2000 respectively. Freedom of Information Act is 2000. Lastly, my Lord, I would ask that the penal notice be attached to the draft.
59. MR JUSTICE MITTING: The Data Protection Act is 1998.
60. MR TOLLEY: Thank you. Your Lordship obviously realised I got that wrong.
61. LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: That is why I did not put it in at all, because I thought everybody knew what it was and I would get it wrong.
62. MR TOLLEY: The Data Protection Act 1998, thanks to my Lord, and the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
63. LOD JUSTICE BROOKE: Very well.
64. THE APPLICANT: My Lord, excuse me, I just now look at this, I didn't have the chance. The only thing that I would ask as I've stated, fifth line, third paragraph, "validity of the assignment of the judgment of Europride".
65. LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: Judgment what?
66. THE APPLICANT: The "validity of the assignment of Europride debt".
67. LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: No, no, we are making the order in these terms which is what the Attorney-General asked for.
68. THE APPLICANT: My Lord, I have seen -- there's no such assignment.
69. LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: We are not opening this up to litigation about the terms.
70. THE APPLICANT: I am not asking to litigation, I just want to reflect ---
71. LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: We are talking about the validity of the assignment on which the bankruptcy was based.
72. THE APPLICANT: Yes, but it should reflect the judgment.
73. LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: We do not propose to change it. That is the order in the terms we intend to make it and we refuse permission to appeal. You will have to apply to the Court of Appeal direct if you wish permission.
74. THE APPLICANT: Can I have at least the reason for refusal of appeal?
75. LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: We refuse permission to appeal because there is no real prospect of success.
76. THE APPLICANT: What about the transcript of the proceedings?
77. LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: I am told there is no form to be filled in in the Divisional Court, but the reasons are that we consider there is no real prospect of success.
78. THE APPLICANT: What about the transcript, my Lord?
79. LOD JUSTICE BROOKE: The transcript of judgment we direct may be made available to you at public expense.
80. THE APPLICANT: His Lordship is not going to change the validity of the assignment?
81. LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: No.
82. THE APPLICANT: So I didn't get an answer on this letter that I presented. That this such letters -- not to the court.
83. LOD JUSTICE BROOKE: If you want to write to the Lord Chancellor, Mr Ebert, not for this court at the moment unless the Lord Chancellor asks us to ---
84. THE APPLICANT: (Inaudible) did say no problem, I can write to anybody, any person outside the court.
85. LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: All we are concerned about is applications to the court.
86. THE APPLICANT: But not letters? Let's make clear you put a restrain ---
87. LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: We have made our order, Mr Ebert, we have made our order.
88. THE APPLICANT: Does it not include letters?