26 February 2010
Tomlinson and others v Birmingham City Council 2010] UKSC 8, [2010] All ER (D) 192 (Feb)
Cases where the award of services or benefits in kind was not an individual right of which the applicant could consider himself the holder, but was dependent upon a series of evaluative judgments by the provider as to whether the statutory criteria were satisfied and how the need for it ought to be met, did not engage Art 6(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
They did not give rise to “civil rights” within the autonomous meaning that was given to that expression for the purposes of that article. Accordingly, an appeal on a point of law to the County Court under s 204 of the Housing Act 1996 did not engage Art 6(1).
