Magistrates — Jurisdiction — Liability order — Magistrates’ court making liability order in respect of rating demand in ignorance of respondent’s request for adjournment — Court later setting aside order on learning true position — Whether jurisdiction to set aside order — Claim dismissed
The claimant council preferred a complaint against the defendant, alleging that it was liable to pay non-domestic rates relating to demands on two separate accounts. A hearing was listed in the magistrates’ court to determine the council’s applications for liability orders against the defendant and various others. GK, a firm of rating consultants, wrote to the clerk to the justices and the city treasurer on behalf of the defendant, requesting an adjournment of all proceedings against its client on the basis that the demand was unlawful in relation to the first account, and that, in relation to the second, the sums demanded had been paid.
At the hearing, the council’s representative indicated that only the application relating to the first demand was to be adjourned. The justices granted the liability order in relation to the second.
GK subsequently sought to have the application relating to the second demand relisted. The justices agreed to do so, pursuant to their common law power, on the ground that a mistake had been made at the earlier hearing in that the court had not been informed of the contents of GK’s letter. At the relisted hearing, the justices set aside the liability order.
The council appealed on the ground that the justices had had no jurisdiction to set aside the order, since the jurisdiction of the magistrates’ court was derived solely from statute, and none of the relevant statutory provisions provided such a power.
Held: The claim was dismissed.
Where a magistrates’ court had purported to do something that was unlawful and in excess of its jurisdiction, it was competent to correct its error. Although the justices had not purported to do something inherently unlawful in the present case, because they had had a discretion either to grant or to refuse an adjournment, they had none the less been entitled, in the circumstances, to reopen the matter. That was because they had not purported to exercise their discretion one way or the other in relation to the application on the second demand, since they had been unaware that the defendant was seeking an adjournment. They had been entitled to reopen the matter once the true position was made known to them, so as to address a discretion that, at the time, they had not realised was the subject of a specific request. They had not exceeded their jurisdiction nor had they acted unlawfully in setting the liability order aside. To hold otherwise would be contrary to common sense and fairness.
Norman Wright (instructed by the solicitor to Liverpool City Council) appeared for the claimants; James Findlay (instructed by Linder Myers, of Manchester) appeared for the defendant.
Sally Dobson, barrister
