Appeal court criticises judge’s “lamentable” delay
A judge’s ruling was not rendered unsafe by a 22-month delay, the Court of Appeal has held.
In Bond v Dunster Properties Ltd [2011] All ER (D) 248 (Apr), the defendant appealed on the basis that the judge’s findings were delivered 22 months after the hearing. The case involved a claim for repayment of a property development loan.
Delivering judgment, Lady Justice Arden apologised to the parties for the “lamentable and unacceptable” delay.
“An unreasonable delay of this kind reflects adversely on the reputation and credibility of the civil justice system as a whole, and reinforces the negative images which the public can have of the way judges and lawyers perform their roles,” she said.
“If there were regular delays of this order, the rule of law would be undermined. There can, of course, be very different reasons for delay, such as ill-health of the judge or a close relative. In rare cases it could be a reprehensible lack of diligence or even sometimes a belief that the parties might do better to settle their differences or to conduct their affairs without knowing the legal result. None of these reasons, except serious ill-health of the judge, would, however, justify a substantial delay beyond the usual period taken for delivering judgments. This may vary according to the tier of the court but is usually taken to be three months.”
However, she said the function of the court in hearing the appeal was not to “impose sanctions or investigate the reasons why the delay occurred”, but to consider whether any of those findings of fact should be set aside and a retrial ordered. It was good practice, she said, for judges to write up the facts immediately after a hearing. There was no evidence the judge had done that in this case, she said, but he did have detailed notes and had made his notebooks available.
