Pleading

The Divisional Court refused the claimant’s application to amend the grounds of his application for judicial review of the decision of the defendant Local Government Election Court, finding him personally guilty, and guilty by his agents, of a number of electoral offences.

There was no reasonable prospect of successful reliance on the presumption of innocence in Art 6(2) of the European Convention on Human Rights, as he had never been charged with, or prosecuted for, a criminal offence and there had been no parallel criminal proceedings.