“The SSHD acknowledges the challenges you’ve raised. As such, comprehensive steps have been taken to evaluate the matter in order to provide a meaningful remedy to your letter before claim. Barring complexities, the SSHD aims to issue a reconsidered decision on your application by 16 October baring any complexities”. [sic]”
“Thank you for your pre-action protocol letter dated the07/07/2023 regarding the delay in processing your client’s visit visa application. The Entry Clearance team have confirmed that a decision regarding your client’s UK visitor visa will be made by the21/08/2023 , absent special circumstances.”
“I make no order as to costs Reasons (1) On25 July 2023 the respondent stated, in pre-action correspondence, that she would make a decision in respect of the applicants’ visa application by21 August 2023 . (2) The respondent missed the deadline by one day: her decision (refusing the application) was made on22 August 2023 . On the same day (22 August 2023 ) these proceedings were lodged. (3) On13 September 2023 the parties entered into a consent order agreeing to withdraw the application and for submissions to be made on costs. I make this decision on costs having reviewed the submissions made in accordance with the consent order. (4) The respondent failed to meet the deadline she agreed to. She submits that the21 August 2023 deadline was a “proposed timeframe” and not an “enforceable undertaking”
“The SSHD notes that the most recent decision to refuse your client’s visit visa application was made on12 December 2024 . The SSHD acknowledges the challenges you have raised. As such, comprehensive steps have been taken to evaluate the matter in order to provide a meaningful remedy to your letter before claim. Barring complexities, the SSHD aims to issue a reconsidered decision on your client’s visit visa application within 3 months of the date of this response to your letter before claim (by20 March 2025 , absent special circumstances). Please note that entry clearance is not an automatic process, and the ECO must make a number of enquiries before they can reach a decision on whether to grant entry clearance to an applicant. Whilst the ECO aims to deal with cases as quick as operationally possible, this cannot always be guaranteed, and entry clearance cannot be granted to any individual until the ECO is satisfied that all the relevant requirements have been met; 3-months is therefore the standard timeframe for reconsideration to ensure all relevant checks are conducted thoroughly.”
“Dear Sirs, This is just a reminder to make and serve the decision by or before20 March 2025 . If you fail in doing so, then we will issue proceedings without any further notice.”
“(1) Having considered carefully the parties’ written submissions and the documents in the claim, together with the guidance in M, I consider that it is appropriate to make no order as to costs. ” (2) The Applicant has, since issuing the claim for judicial review, obtained the remedy sought (a decision on his entry clearance application). I consider that he is to be regarded as the successful party. (3) However, I consider that there is a good reason to depart from the normal order as to costs, namely the Applicant’s failure to comply with the pre-action protocol. As the Court of Appeal made clear in M at §61, the purpose of the pre-action protocol is to enable resolution of the claim without recourse to the issue of proceedings. (4) In this case, the Applicant relies on the previous pre-action letter sent on13 December 2024 and maintains that once the pre-action protocol had been complied with on that occasion, he was not required to do more. I do not accept that submission. The13 December 2024 pre-action letter related to the substance of the12 December 2024 decision and not to the issue of delay which was the subject of the challenge in this claim. The reminder email sent by the Applicant’s solicitors on16 March 2025 simply notified the Respondent that the Applicant would issue proceedings without any further notice if a decision were not made by 20 March. The reminder did not identify any proposed grounds of challenge and therefore was not compliant in form or substance with the pre-action protocol. (5) The facts in this case are therefore substantially different to those summarised in the Court of Appeal’s grant of permission in Dawod Khan v SSHD (CA-2024-000219), on which the Applicant relies. In that case, the issue of delay in making a decision on the asylum application was raised in the original pre-action letter. (6) In this case, it would have been reasonable, and in accordance with the overriding objective, for the Applicant to raise the (new) issue of delay via a pre-action letter prior to issuing the claim for judicial review. I consider that the failure to do so is a good reason to make no order as to costs.”
“20. I consider that, whether or not this appeal is arguable with a realistic prospect of success, there is another compelling reason for giving permission to appeal, which is that this court has given permission in Nisar, which raises similar, but not identical, issues. 21. I also consider that there is, in any event, an issue of general importance in cases like this, in which the Secretary of State has made more than one decision in response to complaints that an initial decision is wrong, has promised to make a further decision within a particular time, ‘absent special circumstances’, does not do so, and does explain why not. That issue is whether it is right to penalise a claimant who has already engaged in pre-action correspondence for not writing a further pre-action protocol letter which complains about the breach of that qualified promise, when the Secretary of State must know that she has not complied, and where, as here, A reminded the Secretary of State shortly before the deadline of her promise, and said that he would issue proceedings immediately if she did not meet it.”
"Before the court can interfere it must be shown that the judge has either erred in principle in his approach or has left out of account, or has taken into account, some feature that he should or should not have considered, or that his decision is wholly wrong because the court is forced to the conclusion that he has not balanced the various factors in the scale."
"44. There are three relevant general principles which appear to me to apply to awards of costs after a trial in ordinary civil litigation. The first is that any decision relating to costs is primarily a matter for the discretion of the trial judge, which means that an appellate court should normally be very slow indeed to interfere with any decision on costs. However, while wide, the discretion must be exercised rationally and in accordance with certain generally accepted principles. To a large extent, those principles are set out inCPR 44.3 , and in particular, paras (2), (4), (5), and (6). If the trial judge departs from rationality or the correct principles then it is legitimate for an appellate court to interfere with his conclusion. 45. The second principle is that, as has long been the case in English civil litigation, and is expressly stated inCPR 44.3 .2(a), the general rule in all civil litigation is that a successful party can look to the unsuccessful party for his costs. Of course, asCPR 44.3 (2)(b), (4), (5) and (6) demonstrate, there may be all sorts of reasons for departing from this principle, but it represents the prima facie position. For instance, the fact that the successful party lost on, or abandoned, an issue, will often involve his being deprived of some, or even all, of his costs (and, in an extreme case, he may even have to pay some of the unsuccessful party's costs) –CPR 44.3 (4)(b). Further, the parties' conduct is a relevant matter, asCPR 44.3 (4)(a) provides, so that failure to adhere to the provisions of any relevant protocol may well affect any decision the court makes on costs. 46. The third principle is that the basis upon which the successful party's lawyers are funded, whether privately in the traditional way, under a 'no win no fee' basis, by the Community Legal Service, by a Law Centre, or on a pro bono arrangement, will rarely, if ever, make any difference to that party's right to recover costs."
“... in Administrative Court cases, just as in other civil litigation, particularly where a claim has been settled, there is, in my view, a sharp difference between (i) a case where a claimant has been wholly successful whether following a contested hearing or pursuant to a settlement, and (ii) a case where he has only succeeded in part following a contested hearing, or pursuant to a settlement, and (iii) a case where there has been some compromise which does not actually reflect the claimant's claims. While in every case, the allocation of costs will depend on the specific facts, there are some points which can be made about these different types of case.” “61. In case (i), it is hard to see why the claimant should not recover all his costs, unless there is some good reason to the contrary. Whether pursuant to judgment following a contested hearing, or by virtue of a settlement, the claimant can, at least absent special circumstances, say that he has been vindicated, and, as the successful party, that he should recover his costs. In the latter case, the defendants can no doubt say that they were realistic in settling, and should not be penalised in costs, but the answer to that point is that the defendants should, on that basis, have settled before the proceedings were issued: that is one of the main points of the pre-action protocols.”
“74. I do not believe that the Appellants can succeed in their claim for costs in this case on the conventional M v Croydon basis – that is, that they obtained substantially the relief sought and are accordingly to be viewed as the successful party. Although in broad terms the relief sought was the provision of accommodation, such relief was not, as Moylan LJ demonstrates, available as a matter of law. More accurately, what the Appellants were seeking was an assessment under section 17 of the 1989 Act, which might (and indeed eventually did) lead to the provision of accommodation. At the time that the proceedings were issued there was no dispute between the Appellants and the Council that it was under an obligation to carry out such an assessment: it had indeed started, to the Appellants' knowledge, some time prior to the commencement of proceedings. The object of the proceedings was not to secure an assessment but to secure it sooner than it was feared would otherwise be the case. That being so, the fact that the assessment was in fact completed, and that the Appellants were accommodated accordingly, does not represent "success": that would have happened anyway. I thus agree with Moylan LJ that that outcome was not the result of the proceedings. In a case of this kind the measure of "success" has to be whether as a result of the proceedings being brought the assessment was completed substantially sooner than it otherwise would have been. I can see no reason for supposing that to have been the case here, and indeed given the time-scales it seems very unlikely. Accordingly, I do not think it would be fair to award the Appellants their costs simply on the basis that they were "the successful party".” 75. However, I do not think that that is the end of the matter. It is necessary to look at the particular circumstances of the case. The Appellants believed that the assessment had already been unlawfully delayed, and although we now know that it would be completed within the week, that was something they had no way of knowing. That being so, I believe that it would be appropriate for them to be awarded their costs if the Court were in a position to decide with sufficient confidence both (a) that Croydon had been legally obliged to produce the assessment prior to28 October 2015 and (b) that it was reasonable of the Appellants to issue the proceedings on that date. I say "with sufficient confidence" because it would not be proportionate to hold the equivalent of a full trial simply in order to determine liability for costs: the Court has to do its best to reach a fair conclusion on a summary basis, with the fallback of making no order if that is not possible. 76. I do not believe that the Appellants can satisfy element (a) in that approach. The starting point must be Garnham J's refusal of permission on the basis that the claim had no realistic prospect of success.”
“The fact that the claimant has obtained the relief which he or she was seeking in the proceedings does not necessarily mean that the existence of the proceedings has caused or contributed to that result. It may be that it would have happened anyway. The cases show that causation is a relevant and sometimes decisive factor in the exercise of the court's discretion concerning costs.”