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Liverpool who confirms that view. Liverpool did start an urgent DJ list
when Richards J was V-C and when the decision was taken to have all
Applications Days at Manchester. There were no takers from the
practitioners for urgent applications! If anything is very urgent and cannot
be heard on the Apps day in Manchester then it is widely known (or at least
DJ Sykes thought it was) that the Chancery DJs would deal with matters
before their lists start ie at 9 or 9.30am. They would be happy to have an
urgent Apps list or even an urgent one hour at the beginning of a list each
week if there were demand but there simply was none when the Chancery
DJs monitored this a few years ago.
6. Licensed Insolvency Practitioners sometimes complain about the quality
of decision making amongst provincial DJs (especially outside the main trial
centres) when exercising insolvency jurisdiction compared to the undoubted
expertise, knowledge & skills exhibited by the London Registrars. In the
light of this, isn’t Lord Justice Briggs quite correct when he suggests
(para.11.49) positive bias in future recruitment?
There can be no suggestion of “positive bias”. Competitions aimed at
recruiting chancery/insolvency DDJs and DJs would be welcome. They
would mirror the present trend for appointing specialist recorders (chancery,
TCC etc.). Specialisation in DJ work should help to improve the quality of
decision making.
In Liverpool, insolvency work is dealt with by the Chancery DJs (except for
debtors' petitions) to ensure consistency of approach. DJ Sykes fully
supports getting the right case before the right Judge and that probably
means encouraging more transfers in of cases to Chancery Registries and a
policy of recruiting and ticketing specialist Deputies (as Briggs LJ suggests).
So far as she knows the number of appeals from full time DJs in insolvency
cases is very low. The experience of all three Specialist Chancery Judges is
that the quality of decision making is not as poor as the question seems to
imply, although the appeals do tend to suggest that the Chancery DJs are
appealed far less on insolvency matters than DJs outside the main trail
centres or those who are not chancery DJs. We do not accept that the
Chancery DJs are less well equipped than the London Bankruptcy
Registrars to deal with insolvency matters.
7.What are the essentials that emerge from Lord Justice Briggs’ Provisional
Report?
Key sections are the overall analysis at paragraphs 1.62 to 1.119 of Chapter
1 (Introduction), the whole of Chapter 2 (Objectives), the whole of Chapter
16 (Executive Summary) and (for the regions) Chapter 10 (Regional Trial
Centres).
The key recommendations for regional trial centres are contained in
paragraphs 16.65 to 16.67. There should be established, and then
implemented, the principle that no case is too big for the regions. For that
purpose, (i) cases issued in London should be transferred to the regions
where parties or their lawyers are located; and (ii) for the largest cases, fulltime High Court Judges should be provided to sit occasionally in the
regional trial centres, where hearings are too long for the Chancery
supervising Judge. In relation to DJs, (i) they should be encouraged to do
more trials, after removing outdated jurisdictional restrictions; (ii) urgent
applications lists should be introduced; (iii) they should be provided with
training in insolvency and bankruptcy matters to improve their specialist
skills; and (iv) a smaller number should be ticketed in Chancery to increase
the Chancery proportion of their individual workloads, and thus to increase
the level of their Chancery skill and expertise. The Report also recommends
(i) encouraging long service by specialist Chancery listing officers and diary
managers, and treating Chancery listing as a specialisation in its own right;
and (ii) increasing case management (including full docketing) by the s. 9
Judges.
However, all of this is subject to the qualification that resources should
permit; and I fear that the resources are simply not there.
8.There have been some recent procedural difficulties relating to applications
for freezing injunctions in support of County Court proceedings; how
should such an application be made & is the guidance contained within the
decision of the Court of Appeal in Schmidt v Wong [2006] 1 WLR 561 still
to be adhered to?
In August 2013 Liverpool Chancery Counsel wrote to me regarding a
practical, procedural point concerning applications for freezing injunctions
in support of County Court proceedings in the belief that the court office
might be dealing with these matters in a manner that was contrary to
guidance from the Court of Appeal. His instructing solicitor had related that
the court office in Manchester was insistent that a Claim Form must be
issued and the appropriate fee paid for issuing a Claim Form for “other
relief ” in the High Court (£465). Further, the notice of hearing for the
return date had a new Manchester claim number on it, which caused a little
confusion when the matter went back to the County Court for trial.
I confirmed that when making an application for a freezing injunction in
support of County Court proceedings, there was no need to issue a claim
form: the appropriate procedure was to apply to the High Court by Part 23
Application Notice (in Form N 244), stating on its face that the application
was made to the High Court in the course of County Court proceedings
pursuant to Article 3 of the High Courts and County Courts Jurisdiction
Order 1991. This procedure i