Neutral Citation Number: [2001] EWHC Admin 228                         CO/3488/99
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT

Royal Courts of Justice
Strand WC2A 2LL

Monday 19th March 2001

B e f o r e:

THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE NEWMAN

THE QUEEN

v

THE MAYOR AND BURGESSES OF 
THE LONDON BOROUGH
OF HACKNEY
Respondent

ex parte

‘S’
Applicant
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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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BRIAN McQUIRE, (instructed by the London Borough of Hackney)
for the Respondent
JENNIFER RICHARDS, (instructed by Mackintosh Duncan), Solicitors
for the Applicant
JUDGMENT (No 2)
Judgment
As Approved by the Court

Crown Copyright ©

Mr Justice Newman

1.	On 13 October 2000 I handed down a judgment ruling upon liability for the costs of these proceedings.  The judgment followed an oral hearing and the parties, having failed to agree on who should bear the costs of the oral application, have served written submissions to enable me to rule in connection with those costs.

2.	The central issue in connection with the costs of the proceedings, as my judgment discloses, was whether some £56,000 could properly be regarded as having been incurred as costs in the proceedings, when the only court events had been an ex parte application for an injunction and attendance at some further short application hearings.  In order to resolve the difference I had to subject the relevant period to analysis.  The period was split into parts as a result.  It was not the case for either side that I should split the issue into parts and so resolve the position, nor was it the case that I should attempt to tax or assess the costs.  As it happened, where I could not properly regard periods of activity as being in connection with the proceedings, I disallowed costs.

3.	My resolution is not apt to be regarded as comprising a definition of issues.  It represents the result of applying my conclusion to the central issue which was whether, after the grant of the junction, any costs should have been incurred by the claimant’s solicitor.

4.	On that the claimant succeeded only in part and the defendant established that which had not been accepted by the claimant, namely that costs incurred in monitoring the authority’s performance of the statutory duty were not legal costs.

5.	Each party had to come to court to have this fundamental difference resolved and, having regard to CPR Part 44.3, and the court’s discretion in the matter, I can see no reason to distinguish between the parties for the purposes of the oral hearing.  There will be no order as to costs in connection with the application for costs.