[Home] [Databases] [World Law] [Multidatabase Search] [Help] [Feedback] | ||
England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions |
||
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions >> Maxey, R (On the Application Of) v High Speed 2 Ltd [2021] EWHC 246 (Admin) (10 February 2021) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2021/246.html Cite as: [2021] EWHC 246 (Admin) |
[New search] [Printable PDF version] [Help]
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL |
||
B e f o r e :
____________________
THE QUEEN on the application of - DR LARCH MAXEY |
Claimant |
|
- and – |
||
HIGH SPEED 2 LIMITED |
Defendant |
|
(1) THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR TRANSPORT ((2) THE LONDON FIRE COMMISSIONER ((3) THE HIGH COURT ENFORCEMENT GROUP LIMITED |
Interested Parties |
____________________
Saira Kabir Sheikh QC, Michael Fry and Jonathan Welch (instructed by The Government Legal Department) for the Defendant
Joseph Barrett (instructed by LG Williams & Prichard) for the Third Interested Party
Alistair Mills (instructed by The Government Legal Department) for the Health and Safety Executive
The First and Second Interested Parties did not appear and were not represented
Hearing date: 9 February 2021
____________________
Crown Copyright ©
Mrs Justice Steyn :
A. Introduction
"1. Decision to extract the protestors currently occupying a tunnel under Euston Square Gardens.
2. Failure to safely manage Euston Square Gardens in a manner compatible with the D's ECHR obligations."
B. The 1 February Order
"It is ordered and directed that:
1. The Claimant's application for injunctions requiring the Defendant and the London Fire Brigade and the High Court Enforcement Group Ltd to cease operations, and for the implementation of an exclusion zone, and for other steps to be taken, is refused, save at 2 below.
2. Where there is a safe method of doing so (in the opinion of the Defendant, having taken the advice of the Health and Safety Executive and the London Fire Brigade) the Defendant is to allow reasonable access between the Claimant and his lawyers for the purpose of his taking legal advice and also for the purpose of facilitating compliance at 4 below.
3. Notwithstanding 1 above, in taking decisions the Defendant is to (continue to) consider carefully, with the health and Safety Executive and the London Fire Brigade, the expert opinions of Mr Peter Faulding as expressed in his witness statement made today.
4. The Claimant is forthwith:
(a) and until further order, to cease any further tunnelling activity and is not to cause any other person to engage in tunnelling;
(b) to inform the Defendant, the Health and Safety Executive, the London Fire Brigade or the Police how many people are in the tunnel or tunnels, and how many of those are children (and where children, their age and immediate contact details for any adult who to his knowledge is their parent or guardian or has responsibility for their care);
(c) to provide details to the Defendant, the Health and Safety Executive, the London Fire Brigade or the Police of the layout, size and engineering used for the tunnel or tunnels (including the composition of the walls, floors and ceiling of the tunnel or tunnels); and
(d) and until further order, to cooperate with the Defendant, the Health and Safety Executive, the London Fire Brigade and the Police to leave the tunnel safely and allow others to do the same."
C. The Applications
D. The Application for Interim Relief
i) The Defendant's extraction operation and other failures give rise to a direct and immediate risk to life, and serious injury crossing the Article 3 threshold, in breach of the Defendant's negative obligations under Article 2 (the right to life) and Article 3 (the prohibition of torture, inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights ("the ECHR").
ii) The Defendant is in breach of its positive obligations pursuant to Articles 2 and 3 to take all reasonable steps to protect the lives of the Claimant and other protesters in circumstances where there is a real and immediate risk to their lives, and to protect them from an imminent prospect of serious harm.
iii) The Defendant has breached the Claimant's right to freedom of expression, in violation of Article 10 of the ECHR, by exposing him to risk of injury or death and by depriving him of sleep.
"In any established protest site, there is always the possibility of underground workings and, in this case, although the tunnelling was undertaken in secret and concealed from visual inspection of the site, there was always the possibility there would be tunnels to which protestors would retreat when the eviction started.
…
The planning of the operation began in early December and the first operation plan was created on 23 December 2020. …"
"Prior to commencement of his operation HCEG produced a 167 page operational plan containing 32 detailed risk assessments. This plan was independently reviewed twice by security professionals in HS2, including me, and also twice by safety professionals in HS2 before the operation was approved. This plan included a contingency for the presence of tunnels which was activated the day before possession and saw issue of a pre-prepared 32 page plan dealing with the tunnel situation. For each stage of the operation a Risk and Method Statement ("RAMS") is produced which goes through a rigorous approval process by HS2 and our contractors before works commence. Recently, the Health and Safety Executive ("HSE") has become part of this process."
E. The Site Visit and Disclosure Applications
"The use of expert evidence in judicial review proceedings, as in all civil proceedings, in the High Court is governed by CPR Pt 35. CPR r 35.1 restricts expert evidence to "that which is reasonably required to resolve the proceedings". It follows from the very nature of a claim for judicial review that expert evidence is seldom reasonably required in order to resolve it. That is because it is not the function of the court in deciding the claim to assess the merits of the decision of which judicial review is sought. The basic constitutional theory on which the jurisdiction rests confines the court to determining whether the decision was a lawful exercise of the relevant public function. To answer that question, it is seldom necessary or appropriate to consider any evidence which goes beyond the material which was before the decision-maker and evidence of the process by which the decision was taken—let alone any expert evidence."
F. §4 of the 1 February Order
"The guiding principles must, I think, be –
(1) that the jurisdiction is to be invoked and exercised exceptionally and with great caution: see the authority already cited;
(2) that there must certainly be something more than mere infringement of the criminal law before the assistance of civil proceedings can be invoked and accorded for the protection or promotion of the interests of the inhabitants of the area: see the Stoke-on-Trent case at 767B, 776C, and Wychavon District Council v. Midland Enterprises (Special Events) Ltd. [1987] 86 L.G.R. 83 at 87;
(3) that the essential foundation for the exercise of the court's discretion to grant an injunction is not that the offender is deliberately and flagrantly flouting the law but the need to draw the inference that the defendant's unlawful operations will continue unless and until effectively restrained by the law and that nothing short of an injunction will be effective to restrain them: see the Wychavon case at page 89."
G. Summary of Conclusions