CR2-09-11-24-Session2_IMX30_1.mxf

Session: pm
Session date: 2009 Nov 24

CASE ID: UKSC 2009/0050
Case name: Tomlinson and others (FC) (Appellants) v Birmingham City Council (Respondents)
Case summary:
Judgment: The Supreme Court unanimously dismissed the appeal. It held that a decision that a local housing authority takes under the Housing Act 1996 that it has discharged its duty to an applicant is not a determination of the applicant’s “civil rights” for the purposes of Article 6(1). It therefore lies outside the protection of that Article. The Court also holds that, although it is unnecessary to decide the point, the appeal procedure as a whole complies with Article 6(1) in any event.
Reasons for the judgment: As to the first issue: Lord Hope (with whom Lady Hale and Lord Brown agreed) reasoned that in cases such as this, where the award of services or benefits in kind is not an individual right of which the applicant can consider himself the holder, but is dependent upon a series of evaluative judgments by the provider as to whether the statutory criteria are satisfied and how the need for it ought to be met, Article 6(1) is not engaged (see para [49]). Lord Collins, whilst agreeing with Lord Hope’s reasoning, placed less emphasis on the evaluative nature of the decision making process (para [58]).The mere fact that evaluative judgments are required did not take the case out of Article 6(1) (para [61]). The main reason why the decision fell outside the scope of the Article was that the statutory duty lacked precision. There was no right to any particular accommodation; the duty was simply to ensure that accommodation was available. Together with the essentially public nature of the duty, those factors meant that the duty did not give rise to an individual economic right (para [73]).As to the second issue: Although the question whether or not the letters were received was factual, it was just one among a number of interlinked questions that had to be addressed to determine whether the housing authority’s duty had been discharged. No case of the European Court of Human Rights was to the effect that an appeal from such a determination on a point of law only would constitute a breach of Article 6(1) (paras [53]-[55], [79]).
Hearing start date: 2009 Nov 23
Hearing end date: 2009 Nov 24