Edwin Buckett wins permission from the Court of Appeal to challenge a judgment where deceit is admitted in earlier proceedings

News | Fri 30th Jan, 2015

On the 30th January 2015, a reserved judgment of a three Judge Court of Appeal granted the Appellant, in Bishop-v-Chhokar, the right to appeal an order where the Respondent subsequently admitted lying when giving evidence in earlier civil proceedings. The lies came to light in a second action between the same parties when the Respondent was giving evidence.

The question for the Court was whether the jurisdiction under CPR 52.17 should be exercised in a case to allow the original judgment to be challenged on appeal out of time or, whether a fresh action for fraud should be brought against the Respondent.

To qualify for the CPR 52.17 jurisdiction, the Appellant needed to show, amongst other things, that there was no other ‘effective remedy’. Aikens LJ, concluded that there must be ‘some doubt’ whether the County Court had jurisdiction to determine a free-standing claim to set aside a previous decision of the County Court said to have been obtained by fraud.

In addition, he concluded that it was “very much open to doubt” that the High Court had the procedural power to set aside or rescind a judgment alleged to have been obtained by fraud in a lower Court.

The full appeal will be listed later this year and the Court of Appeal is expected to give guidance on how an aggrieved litigant or insurer might proceed where deceit is exposed and an earlier judgment obtained which a party wishes to be challenge.

Edwin appeared for the successful Appellant instructed by Bark & Co, London EC4.