England and Wales High Court (Senior Courts Costs Office) Decisions

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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Senior Courts Costs Office) Decisions >> Jackson v The Lord Chancellor's Department [2003] EWHC 9030 (Costs) (27 March 2003)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Costs/2003/9030.html
Cite as: [2003] EWHC 9030 (Costs)

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This summary of a judgment has been obtained from the Supreme Court Costs Office pages on the HM Courts Service web site. The citation used by BAILII is not an officially approved citation. The full text of the judgment may have an official Neutral Citation issued by the court, and may be available elsewhere on BAILII.

 

 



No.10 of 2003

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Wayne Jackson v The Lord Chancellor’s Department
27 March 2003
Mr Justice Leveson (Sitting with One Assessor)

The appellant barrister had represented a defendant in a criminal trial involving an alleged fraud of members of the medical profession. Following the collapse of the prosecution after a one month trial his fees were assessed under Regulation 16 of The Costs in Criminal Cases (General) Regulations 1986 payable out of public funds.

Being dissatisfied with the amount allowed at both determination and redetermination Mr Jackson decided to appeal to a Costs Judge, and instructed Mr E, another barrister, to represent him. The appeal was successful to some extent, and Mr E then sought a fee of £7,500 for representing Mr Jackson. The Costs Judge allowed £750, considering that on the proper interpretation of the Regulations he was limited to allowing such sum as would have been appropriate for a barrister to be paid had he personally attended the hearing, rather than briefing someone to represent him.

The Judge on final appeal held that a successful appellant in Mr Jackson’s position was not restricted to such a sum as would compensate him, with his pre-existing knowledge of the case, for the time it would have taken him to prepare for and present the appeal in person. Thus, if it was reasonable to instruct a different counsel the Costs Judge could exercise his discretion to allow a sum in respect of those costs, but was not obliged to do so.

The Judge went on to say that it would be reasonable to instruct counsel in circumstances where a technical question arose on the applicability of some part of the Regulations, or any other issue which legitimately deserved the attention of a specialist costs counsel. However it would not probably be reasonable to do so if the only issue on the appeal concerned the general judgment of the weight of any particular case, or the value in monetary terms of the particular item of work. A general consideration of all the circumstances of each case would be determinative of what was reasonable.

However, the Judge said that whilst the Costs Judge had misdirected himself, he had nevertheless come to the right conclusion in the case before him, because reasonable costs did not include independent representation, and there was no reason why Mr Jackson could not have represented himself.