Supreme Court to hear appeal by council over costs award in children case
The Supreme Court will next week hear a local authority’s challenge to being ordered to pay a father's appeal costs in a children’s case.
In In the matter of S (Children) the father’s appeal against a full care order made in respect of his daughter was allowed by the Court of Appeal. The father funded his appeal privately and sought costs in the sum of £13,787.70.
Despite a finding that the local authority, the London Borough of Barnet, had not engaged in reprehensible behaviour or taken an unreasonable stance in the hearing at first instance, which would be required to depart from the normal rule that costs were not awarded in children’s cases, a costs order was made against the council in respect of the costs of the appeal.
Lady Justice Macur in the Court of Appeal said she considered the question of costs in the appeal to be of a discrete category and the discretion of the Court to be broad.
The judge said the case of Re T (Children) [2012] UKSC 36 was distinguishable for the reasons given by the counsel to the father.
These reasons were that the Re T judgment was directed at first instance hearings where public policy considerations militated against any possible financial deterrent to an authority taxed with the responsibility of protecting children from pursuing proceedings.
Likewise, the father's barrister argued, in the case of an appeal neither should a parent be deterred from challenging decisions which impact upon the most crucial of human relationships.
Counsel for Barnet said the case was not so restricted and resisted the costs application.
But the Court of Appeal unanimously agreed with the father’s counsel.
Lady Macur added: “In this case, [counsel for Barnet] has been forced to recognise the deficiencies of the judgment of the lower court but nevertheless has resisted the appeal.
“In the circumstances of the father's limited means, already decreased by his travel from Norway to the United Kingdom to exercise contact, I would grant his application and order costs in the sum of £13,787.70.”
The issue before the Supreme Court therefore is “whether the approach to ordering costs to be paid by local authorities in care proceedings set out in Re T (Children) [2012] UKSC 36 extends to the costs of appeals from orders made in such proceedings”.
The case will be heard for half a day on 28 January by a five-justice panel comprising Lady Hale, Lord Wilson, Lord Hughes, Lord Toulson and Lord Hodge.
The Access to Justice Foundation has been given permission to intervene in the case.
