Case Summaries: 26 April 1999
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Your support makes all the difference.THE FOLLOWING notes of judgments were prepared by the reporters of the All England Law Reports.
Landlord and tenant
Artesian Residential Investments Ltd v Beck; CA (Hirst, Mantell LJJ) 19 Mar 1999.
A DEFENDANT in possession proceedings might only invoke the relief provided for by s 138(1) of the County Courts Act 1984 where the proceedings were brought to enforce the landlord's right to re-entry or forfeiture in respect of the premises for non-payment of rent. Where the proceedings were brought under the Housing Act 1988 in relation to assured tenancies, the tenancy was ipso facto brought to an end by an order for possession made by the court, and therefore s 138 did not come into play at all.
Edward Denehan (Finers) for the plaintiffs; Jan Luba (R. Gwynne & Sons, Shrewsbury) for the defendants.
Town and country planning
Davenport and anor v Hammersmith and Fulham London Borough Council; QBD, Div Ct (Rose LJ, Richards J) 22 Mar 1999.
THERE WAS power by ss 29(1) and 30(1) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 to impose a condition prohibiting an applicant for planning permission from carrying out activities on land which was outside the application site and outside the applicant's control, where the applicant was capable of complying with the condition.
Richard Harwood (William Sturges & Co) for the applicants; Michael Bedford (Legal Services Division, London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham) for the council.
Fishing rights
R v Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food, ex p Bray; QBD, Crown Office List (Scott Baker J) 23 Mar 1999.
SECTION 5 of the Sea Fisheries Regulation Act 1966 was sufficiently widely drawn to permit the making of a bye-law prohibiting fishing vessels over a specified length from fishing within a certain distance from the shore. The section had to be looked at as a whole and it provided an all-embracing power to make bye-laws to control fishing on a district by district basis.
Michael Davey (Andrew M. Jackson & Co, Hull) for the applicant; Peter Mantle (Solr for the MAAF) for the respondent.
Immigration
R v Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex p Berisha and anor; CA (Butler-Sloss, Schiemann, Potter LJJ) 23 Mar 1999.
THE HOME Secretary was entitled to make a decision to remove asylum seekers back to a third country pursuant to s 2(2) of the Asylum and Immigration Act 1996 whilst an appraisal of their claims was still in progress, provided that at the date of the rele- vant decision, he had taken such steps as were then reasonable to acquaint himself with the facts.
Manjit S Gill (Wesley Gryk) for the appellants; David Pannick QC, Lisa Giovanetti (Treasury Solicitor) for the Home Secretary.
Wills
Hodgson v Clare and ors; Ch D (Stanley Burnton QC sitting as a deputy High Court judge) 30 Mar 1999.
THE PRESUMPTIONS and canons of interpretation were not tools for rewriting a clear will, but were aids to construction. Extrinsic evidence could not be admitted under s 21 of the Administration of Justice Act 1982 unless there was an "ambiguity" in the will, and even then it would only be admitted as an aid to interpretation and not to rectification.
Andrew G Walker (Sparling Benham & Brough, Colchester) for the plaintiff; Simon Airey (Trewby Scott & Jewitt, Leatherhead) for the defendants.
Copyright
Hyde Park Residence Ltd v Yelland and ors; Ch D (Jacob J) 16 Mar 1999.
AN ACTION for infringement of copyright in respect of two still photographs, taken from a security video system installed in a house in Paris owned by Mohamed Al Fayed and published in the Sun newspaper, failed. The defendants had published the photographs, which showed that the Princess of Wales and Dodi Fayed had spent only 28 minutes at the house on the day before they were killed, to refute claims made by Mohamed Al Fayed in an article in the Mirror newspaper that the visit had lasted two hours. That use of the photographs came within the defence of fair dealing for the purpose of reporting current events in s 30(2) of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Michael Bloch QC, Alistair Abott (DJ Freeman) for the plaintiff; Richard Spearman QC (Farrer & Co) for the defendant.
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