The Rev Mx Benjamin-Elijah Cakebread-Snow, R (on the application of) v The County Court at Durham [2026] EWHC 1758 (Admin)

[2026] EWHC 1758 (Admin)

Case No AC-2025-LDS-000042

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE

Venue LEEDS DISTRICT REGISTRY

KING'S BENCH DIVISION

ADMINISTRATIVE COURT

The Courthouse, 1 Oxford Row,

Venue LEEDS, LS1 3BG

Date 13/07/2026

Before

The Honourable MRS JUSTICE COLLINS RICE DBE CB

Between

The Rev Mx Benjamin-Elijah CAKEBREAD-SNOWClaimant

The COUNTY COURT at DurhamDefendant

Rt Hon Michael Tomlinson KC (volunteering under the auspices of ADVOCATE) for Claimant

Mr Christopher Knight KC (instructed by HMCTS) for Defendant

Hearing Hearing date: 16 th June 2026

Approved Judgment

This judgment was handed down remotely at 10.30am on 13 July 2026 by circulation to the parties or their representatives by e-mail and by release to the National Archives.

.............................

THE HONOURABLE MRS JUSTICE COLLINS RICE

Introduction

[1]This claim for judicial review has an unusual history, and raises some fundamental issues about the initiation of civil proceedings in the County Court – in what, I am told, is a legal and factual context for which there is no direct precedent authority.

Litigation history

(a) The County Court proceedings

[2]The Claimant has acted as a litigant in person throughout the County Court proceedings narrated below.

[3]The Claimant recounts arriving at Durham County Court at 3.30 in the afternoon on Friday 22nd November 2024 with a claim for issue, comprising a County Court N1 claim form, particulars of claim, a number of completed application forms, and a substantial amount of evidential and other paperwork. The Claimant had brought several lever-arch files to the Court.

[4]The completed Form N1 gave an address for service, and was signed and dated under a statement of truth. It identified three defendants, again with addresses. The brief details of claim identified causes of action in personal injury, human rights and wrongful imprisonment/arrest and assault. A remedy in damages (unquantified) was sought. There is no dispute that any fee due was paid.

[5]The Claimant has given an account of a less than welcoming reception by security staff at the Court, and then the Court Office declining to issue a claim there and then, on the basis that it would take too long to do so that afternoon, and that it appeared a full set of copy documents had not been provided. The Claimant emailed the Court Office later the same afternoon to complain about all of this. The email included the following: Further, it is my position that the claim should have been issued as I arrived within time and before closure. … I am concerned that, as a result, my claim might be considered one day out of time owing to the weekend and the deadline for filing being 23rd November 2024 (for the one year anniversary of the issues that gave rise to my claim on 24th November 2023).

[6]The Claimant returned to the Court Office after the weekend, on Monday 25th November 2024, with further copy as requested; to be informed the additional copy was not after all strictly necessary, and that the Court Office had not issued the claim but instead referred all the paperwork to a judge for directions.

[7]District Judge Richardson gave directions by Order dated 27th November 2024, (made of the Court’s own motion and without a hearing). These directions were prefaced by a number of recitals. The recitals observed among other things that the claim as presented included not only particulars of claim but a quantity of other documentation running to 583 pages in total; that the particulars of claim failed to comply with Civil Procedure Rule 16(4)(1) by not constituting ‘a concise statement of the facts on which the claimant relies’; that the claim form and particulars of claim as they stood were likely to obstruct the just disposal of the proceedings and were susceptible to being struck out; and that ‘accordingly it would be unreasonable to issue the claim in its current format’.

[8]The operative part of the Order directed that(i) the ‘583 page claim forms’ were to be returned to the Claimant, for editing and resubmission in accordance with the CPR;

(ii) an application for pre-action disclosure be dismissed (because ‘the claimant has already submitted a claim form for issue and has therefore gone beyond the need for pre-commencement disclosure’);

(iii) an application for a stay to allow one of the defendants to respond to a letter of claim be dismissed on its merits;

(iv) two applications for injunctions be dismissed as not disclosing any sufficient grounds for interim relief.

[9]The Claimant(a) applied to the County Court for this Order to be set aside and

(b) issued a claim in the High Court for judicial review on 20th February 2025.

[10]The Claimant’s application for set aside was heard by District Judge Hambler on 18th March 2025. By Order of that date (sealed on 31st March 2025) DJ Hambler set aside DJ Richardson’s Order. The new Order’s recitals included observations about the prematurity of much of the material submitted within the claim, and gave indications of changes needed. It went on to direct the Claimant to file an amended claim form and particulars of claim, as indicated, by 1st April 2025; these would then be served on the defendants by the Court. The material identified as extraneous was to be returned to the Claimant.

[11]On 2nd April 2025, the Claimant applied for permission to appeal DJ Hambler’s Order. The Claimant’s Appellant’s Notice objected to the striking-out of the disclosure application, the ‘refusal and dismissal’ of the evidence, ‘the requirement to file an amended N1 Claim Form and Particulars of Claim’, and the requirement to exclude documents associated with the injunction applications. The relief sought included ‘the claim to be issued, served on the Defendants and a claim number allocated’.

[12]By further Order dated 7th April 2025 (sealed 9th April 2025), DJ Hambler imposed a revised deadline of 23rd April 2025 for submitting a revised claim form and particulars of claim. The Claimant applied on 14th April 2025 to stay that Order. By Order of 6th June 2025, His Honour Judge Freedman directed that latest order to be stayed pending the Claimant’s appeal proceedings. Then by further Order of 29th August 2025, HHJ Freedman stayed the appeal application pending determination of the judicial review proceedings.

[13]The County Court at Durham has not, to date, issued the Claimant’s claim (although it has given it a claim number).

(b) The Judicial Review proceedings

[14]The judicial review claim form issued in the High Court on 20th February 2025 identifies DJ Richardson’s Order of 27th November 2024 as the proposed object of its challenge. It sets out that the decision challenged included: 1. Durham County Court’s refusal to issue the claim form and serve this and the Defendant bundles filed. 2. The order at paragraph 1 – that all ‘extraneous’ documents are to be removed from the claim bundle. 3. The order at paragraph 2 – that the Particulars of Claim be revised and restricted in page length. 4. The order at paragraph 3 – refusing proper disclosure. 5. The order at paragraph 5 – refusing two N16A injunctions.

[15]The relief sought included, among other things, the quashing of the whole Order and ‘a mandatory order that the claim be issued in its original form, in full, and as already filed with Durham County Court’. (The Order had, of course, meanwhile been set aside by DJ Hambler.)

[16]The Claimant’s detailed statement of grounds, dated 3rd February 2025, challenged the lawfulness of DJ Richardson’s Order as being irrational and unreasonable, and procedurally improper in a number of respects, and took issue with all aspects of it, asserting an entitlement to have the claim issued in precisely the form in which it was submitted and to all the interim relief sought.

[17]It identified ‘the leading head of claim being the very refusal to issue the claim form, and therefore the wider claim’. It also set out that ‘there is no provision within the Civil Procedure Rules for a Court to refuse to issue a claim whereas there are of course are provisions for striking a claim out. The Claimant avers that the decision to refuse to issue the claim was illegal in that District Judge Richardson had no power to refuse to issue the claim to begin with’.

[18]The Claimant applied on 2nd April 2025 to add the Order of DJ Hambler dated 18th March 2025, and the Claimant’s appeal papers, to the scope of the judicial review application

[19]The Claimant’s application for judicial review, and to expand its scope, was placed before His Honour Judge Saffman (sitting in retirement as a judge of the High Court) to consider giving permission on the papers. The application was refused on all grounds by Order dated 30th May 2025 (served on 14th July 2025).

[20]The Judge’s reasoning went as follows. The Claimant had an alternative remedy for challenging DJ Richardson’s Order (made of the Court’s own motion on the papers). The Claimant could apply to have it set aside. The Claimant had applied to have it set aside. It had been set aside. So not only did the Claimant have an alternative remedy, it had been successful, and the application for judicial review had become wholly academic. There was no good reason for a wholly academic application to proceed to JR. As regards DJ Hambler’s Order, the available and obvious remedy was an appeal. Again, the Claimant was aware of that remedy and was pursuing it. So there was no basis for giving permission for parallel JR proceedings.

[21]HHJ Saffman certified the application as being Totally Without Merit in these circumstances. The consequence of that was that the Claimant was unable to renew the application at an oral hearing. So the Claimant applied to the Court of Appeal for permission to appeal HHJ Saffman’s refusal and reasons in their entirety.

[22]The Claimant’s proposed grounds of appeal set out that there was no power for the County Court to refuse to issue a claim; and ‘The central issue is that Part 7 of the CPR envisions issuance after filing, with all other processes, such as Case Management and the availability of appeal, then falling within the CPR framework. It is therefore submitted that DJ Richardson, in his first order, and DJ Hambler, in his second order, acted ultra vires.’ The Claimant proposed that the refusal to issue a claim was ‘an administrative decision (albeit made by a Judge) rather than a Judicial one made within the context of an issued claim’ and accordingly ‘the Appellant pursued Judicial Review as the appropriate avenue to challenge this non-judicial decision, whilst also attempting other routes of appeal as far as procedurally possible.’

[23]The Claimant set out that HHJ Saffman had accordingly erred in law in these respects, and that the application for JR was not academic because the key outstanding issue relating to the powers to make each order remained to be resolved. In the skeleton argument included in the appeal bundle, the Claimant expanded on the principal submission that ‘The County Court’s initial refusal to issue the Appellant’s claim was an ultra vires administrative act, creating an arbitrary barrier to justice and contravening the express provisions of the Civil Procedure Rules and accompanying Practice Directions.’

[24]The appeal skeleton cited the Civil Procedure Rules as follows: [2.3] CPR Part 7 governs the making and issuance of County Court claims. It contains no provision empowering a court to refuse to issue a claim form that is properly filed with the requisite fee or fee remission. [2.4] CPR 3.2 clarifies the interplay between Court Officers and Judges in administrative steps. It provides that a Judge may take a step usually performed by a Court Officer, or be consulted on it. The issuance of a claim is fundamentally such an administrative step. [2.5] Crucially, Practice Direction 3A, paragraph 2.1 provides express guidance on this administrative function…

[2.5] Crucially, Practice Direction 3A, paragraph 2.1 provides express guidance on this administrative function…

[25]The skeleton proposed that HHJ Saffman had overlooked the point that the CPR provides remedies such as strike-out which arise only after a claim has been issued, and that the District Judges’ purported exercise of these powers before issue was ultra vires. The skeleton proposed that there were no (reliable) alternative remedies, including appeals, because these too relied on a claim having been issued. Although DJ Richardson’s order had been set aside, DJ Hambler’s order doing so was parasitic on it and perpetuated its errors. Permission for judicial review was essential to secure the issue of the claim and clarify the roles of court staff and judges in the matter of issuing a claim and for remedying the Claimant’s wrongful denial of access to justice. It was clearly in the public interest.

[26]The Claimant’s application for permission to appeal was placed before Lewison LJ for determination on the papers. Exercising the powers of the Court of Appeal pursuant to Civil Procedure Rule 52.8(5), Lewison LJ refused permission to appeal, but granted permission to apply for judicial review, the substantive JR claim to be determined by the Administrative Court. His reasons were as follows: 1. The point raised by the proposed appeal is an important one and has real prospects of success. 2. Nevertheless, I consider that the substantive issue should be decided by the Administrative Court. 3. I note that the GLD has not provided any grounds of resistance. It would be desirable for some response to be filed on behalf of the Defendant, so that the point raised does not go by default.

[27]The substantive JR comes before me in these circumstances. The Claimant secured pro bono representation from Mr Tomlinson KC for the hearing. In accordance with usual practice, the named Defendant, the County Court, does not participate, but mindful of Lewison LJ’s indication, Mr Knight KC was instructed by His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service to assist the Court in a capacity akin to that of an amicus. As Mr Knight KC explained, consistent with that role, and with the constitutional obligation of HMCTS to respect and protect judicial independence, including that of the District Judges whose Orders have been put in issue by these JR proceedings, HMCTS takes a neutral stance on the outcome of the claim.

[28]I was considerably assisted by the written and oral submissions of both Counsel in exploring the issues raised by this claim for judicial review.

Preliminary

(a) The scope of the JR claim

[29]This claim comes before me from the Court of Appeal in short form, rather than via High Court permission proceedings in the usual way. I do not have the benefit of preliminary ground-by-ground consideration of the arguable public law merits of the Claimant’s case, or other case management indications.

[30]Lewison LJ’s decision refers to the point raised by the appeal application and the substantive issue to be decided in the JR claim – singular, in each case, notwithstanding the multiple grounds canvassed by the Claimant along the way to the present hearing. Mr Tomlinson KC advanced the case before me on the basis that the single (substantive) issue for determination was whether it was lawful for the County Court not to have issued the Claimant’s claim, and that I did not need to go beyond that point because it was fully dispositive of the merits of the claim.

[31]Mr Tomlinson KC further advanced the claim before me on the basis of a primary submission that the principal target of the claim was the failure of the Court Office to issue the claim, rather than either of the Judges’ Orders more directly challenged in the proceedings to date, and that I could and should dispose of it on that ground alone. He also, however, made secondary or alternative submissions going to the susceptibility to judicial review of the two Judges’ Orders.

[32]Notwithstanding the strict approach the Administrative Court takes to the management of judicial review proceedings and the disciplines to be observed by claimants, I have to take a pragmatic view of my task in these circumstances. The case comes before the High Court to deal with an important, and it would appear novel, question about the powers and duties of the County Court – whether by its judiciary or by its officers – presented with a request such as the present to issue a claim. I heard full argument on that point and that point alone. I deal with it in full in this judgment, and accept Mr Tomlinson KC’s invitation to regard it as dispositive of the merits of the Claimant’s claim.

(b) Legal framework

[33]The County Court is a creature of statute. It has no inherent jurisdiction, and the source of its powers and duties has to be sought in the first place in the Civil Procedure Rules. It is not controversial that

Article 6 of the ECHR

, as given effect in the Human Rights Act 1998, is also at least potentially engaged.

[34]The start of County Court proceedings is governed by CPR Part 7. (There is a preliminary issue, not raised directly in this claim, about where proceedings are started, the answer to which is provided by rules which make it turn on factors including geography, and the subject matter and value of the claim.)

[35]CPR 7.2 provides as follows: How to start proceedings 7.2 –(1) Proceedings are started when a court issues a claim form at the request of the claimant.

(2) A claim form is issued on the date entered on the form by the court. …

How to start proceedings

[36]CPR 16.2 specifies what must be contained in a claim form: a concise statement of the nature of the claim, the remedy sought, a statement of value (and, where relevant, interest) in the case of a money claim, and such other matters as may be set out in practice directions. CPR 16.2(2) also provides that if particulars of claim ‘are not contained in, or are not served with, the claim form’ the claim form must state that particulars will follow. Particulars of claim, in other words, can be, and sometimes are, incorporated into a claim at the outset rather than following afterwards in what may be the more usual way.

[37]Practice Direction 7A makes further provision as follows: Start of proceedings6.1 Proceedings are started when the court issues a claim form at the request of the claimant (see rule 7.2) but where the claim form as issued was received in the court office on a date earlier than the date on which it was issued by the court, the claim is ‘brought’ for the purposes of the Limitation Act 1980 and any other relevant statute on that earlier date.

6.2 The date on which the claim form was received by the court will be recorded by a date stamp either on the claim form held on the court file or on the letter that accompanied the claim form when it was received by the court.

6.3 An enquiry about the date on which the claim form was received by the court should be directed to a court officer.

6.4 Parties proposing to start a claim which is approaching the expiry of the limitation period should recognise the potential importance of establishing the date the claim form was received by the court and should themselves make arrangements to record the date. …

Start of proceedings

[38]Part 3 of the CPR sets out the Court’s case and costs management powers, and includes, at CPR 3.4, its powers to strike out a statement of case – including where it appears to the Court to disclose no reasonable grounds for bringing a claim (rule 3.4(2)(a)), or is an abuse of the court’s process or otherwise likely to obstruct the just disposal of the proceedings (rule 3.4(2)(b)). Practice Direction 3A makes further provision as follows: Claims which appear to fall within rule 3.4(2)(a) or (b) 2.1 If a court officer is asked to issue a claim form which they believe may fall within rule 3.4(2)(a) or (b) they should issue it, but may then consult a judge (under rule 3.2) before returning the claim form to the claimant or taking any other step to serve the defendant. The judge may on their own initiative make an immediate order designed to ensure that the claim is disposed of or proceeds in a way that accords with the rules.

Claims which appear to fall within rule 3.4(2)(a) or (b)

(a) or (b)

[39]Rule 3.2, referred to in that paragraph of the Practice Direction, says this: Court officer’s power to refer to a judge 3.2 Where a step is to be taken by a court officer –(a) the court officer may consult a judge before taking that step;

(b) the step may be taken by a judge instead of the court officer. The commentary in the White Book on this provision observes that: Many steps taken by court officers concern the filing of documents, the issue of claim forms and the entry of default judgments. This rule enables court officers to refer to a judge any such document, form or request for judgment which appears to be irregular or inappropriate. In respect of that matter the judge may give directions to the court officer as to the step to be taken, or may take the step themselves. In either case the judge may also exercise the court’s power to make orders of its own initiative (see r.3.3). Court officer’s power to refer to a judge (a) the court officer may consult a judge before taking that step; (b) the step may be taken by a judge instead of the court officer. Many steps taken by court officers concern the filing of documents, the issue of claim forms and the entry of default judgments. This rule enables court officers to refer to a judge any such document, form or request for judgment which appears to be irregular or inappropriate. In respect of that matter the judge may give directions to the court officer as to the step to be taken, or may take the step themselves. In either case the judge may also exercise the court’s power to make orders of its own initiative (see r.3.3).

Court officer’s power to refer to a judge

[40]Rule 2.5 provides as follows: Court staff 2.5(1) Where these Rules require or permit the court to perform an act of a formal or administrative character, that act may be performed by a court officer.

(2) A requirement that a court officer carry out any act at the request of a party is subject to the payment of any fee required by a fees order for the carrying out of that act. (Rule 3.2 allows a court officer to refer a matter for judicial decision before taking any step) Provision is made by way of Civil Proceedings Fees Order for the issue of a claim to be made subject to payment of a fee, or establishing entitlement to fees remission.

(a) No general discretion to refuse to issue a claim

[41]Did the Court Office act unlawfully? If the relevant question is posed conversely in the form of whether court staff have any general discretion to refuse to issue a claim form, Mr Tomlinson KC and Mr Knight KC concurred that the answer to that must be ‘no’. I agree.

[42]The pre-CPR caselaw cites the venerable authority of Clarke v Bradlaugh

(1881) 8 QBD 63

and the pithy observation of Brett LJ (at 68-69) that ‘The writ is issued before the action commences, it is issued on the application of the party, it cannot be issued without the application of the party, and it cannot be refused.’

[43]This was cited as good law a hundred years later by Bingham LJ (as he then was) in Dresser UK Ltd v Falcongate Ltd

[1992] 1 QB 502

when he observed (at 518) equally pithily that ‘the issue of a writ cannot be refused and it is not a judicial act but the act of a party. … There is no involvement of the court save through the medium of an administrative officer.’

[44]These observations were cited with approval by the Court of Appeal in Riniker v University College London (The Times, 17th April 1999). That was a case where the claimant had filed what was ultimately accepted to have been an appropriate form of writ, which was returned to her unissued in error and ultimately issued with a date stamp postdating the expiry of the limitation period. Evans LJ observed (at [17]) ‘In the present case, the draft writ was in the custody of a proper officer of the Court on 28 July and it is now accepted that the endorsement was in proper form. In those circumstances, the issue of the writ could not be refused … . Therefore, the writ could and should have been issued then.

(b) A matter of timing

[45]I observe the preoccupation in this caselaw with the matter of limitation. The courts were clearly concerned to underline that because it was the administrative job of a court office to issue proceedings on presentation, claimants ought not to bear the risk that administrative intervention or delay in issue might deprive them of a claim by lapse of time. That concern about limitation has also been a preoccupation of the present Claimant, with reference to the statutory one-year limitation period for bringing a Human Rights Act claim.

[46]To the extent that this concern about limitation was a driver of the pre-CPR caselaw, however, it might now have to be regarded with a degree of caution. That is because, on the face of it at least, the matter of limitation has since been clarified by Practice Direction 7A paragraph 6.1. That provides for the running of limitation time against a claimant to be decoupled from the date of the issue of a claim altogether. Time is to stop running not when a claim is issued but when it is received in the court office. That is when a claim is brought for limitation purposes.

[47]PD 7A [6.1] itself has had an interesting litigation history, considered further below. But the policy it appears to enshrine surely has much to recommend it in terms of fairness, practicality and common sense. Bringing a claim – that is, causing it to be received in the court office – is truly ‘the act of a party’, but the formal act of issue always has to be completed by a Court. A claimant who has brought a claim, and caused it to be received by the Court, is not thereafter to be deprived of the claim by limitation as a result of lapse of time in issuing (or unwarranted refusal to issue) by a court office – that would be unfair where a claimant had done all they could to cause the claim to be issued.

[48]Mr Knight KC put it to me that the present Claimant can be reassured on that point at least. If the Claimant brought a claim on 22nd November 2024 by hand-delivering the claim so that the court office received it on that date, nothing that happened thereafter is capable of raising a limitation bar on that claim. The ‘if’ with which that last sentence begins is a matter I need to consider further below. More generally, however, PD 7A [6.1] tends to make the importance of this question of whether a court office acts unlawfully in not issuing claims (promptly) much less acute now than it might otherwise have been – perhaps a possible reason for the points arising in this case not having been directly litigated before now. It also requires looking at the question through some additional lenses.

[49]The first of these is obviously the matter of timing. The Court in Riniker might be understood to have extrapolated from the absence of a power of court staff to refuse to issue a claim, to a proposition not just about deeming a claim started when tendered, but inferring a legal duty of some sort for court offices to issue immediately upon receipt: issue could not be refused and therefore the writ could and should have been issued there and then.

[50]That might now be thought quite a leap. Decoupled from the limitation issue, and considered from the perspective of the modern HMCTS, there is an obvious question about how far that should be taken literally as a matter of law or practice. In real life, busy court offices have much to do and many pressures on their limited resources, including in the busiest offices no doubt many demands for the issue of proceedings. I find no basis in the Civil Procedure Rules, or (subject to what is said below) in the caselaw since Riniker, for imputing a legal duty for court offices to provide a same-day service for the issue of claims, such that they act unlawfully if they do not do so. So if the question in the present case were reformulated to ask whether the Court Office acted unlawfully in telling the Claimant on a Friday afternoon that it did not have the capacity to process the substantial documentation tendered there and then, then I think the answer must be ‘no’ – and that no legal consequences for either the Claimant or the Court flow from that factual premise in and of itself.

(c) A matter of form

[51]I am reinforced in that view by looking at the question through another lens, which emerges from the post-CPR caselaw – the lens of form. As already noted, the CPR set out some rules dealing with where a claim must be issued and what it must as a minimum contain, and fee rules apply. On the facts of this case at least, it has not been contentious that the Claimant tendered the claim in the right court, using the right Form N1, and having filled out the few pages of that form in a manner ostensibly compliant with the minimum requirements of CPR 16.2; and had complied with fees regulations. Even if all of those matters are not in issue here, however, nevertheless they are (at least) compliance questions potentially arising when any claim is lodged with a court office (and further questions certainly do arise about the form of what the Claimant tendered here).

[52]I was taken to the case of Barnes v St Helens MBC

[2007] 1 WLR 879

, a decision of the Court of Appeal. It was another case about limitation, where it appears the Court was invited to rule on whether what is now PD 7A [6.1] was consistent with CPR 7.2 and accurately stated the law (the numbering at the time was different, but the wording identical). The Court was entirely content that it was, and did. There was a proper and logical distinction between starting a claim for litigation purposes and bringing a claim for limitation purposes. Bringing a claim is a unilateral act of a claimant, potentially discharging the duty on the claimant to bring a claim within the time allowed by law. Issuing a claim requires an act of the Court potentially triggering litigation timetables including for service and response.

[53]The facts in Barnes concerned a delay by court staff in formally issuing a claim as a result of industrial action. The Court was clear there was no (limitation) jeopardy in that for the claimant. The question of whether the court office had acted unlawfully – which might have been illuminating in that particular factual context – did not arise directly in the case, but Tuckey LJ made this further observation (at [19]): I do not see that receipt of the claim form by the court involves any transactional act. The court staff who receive the documents are not performing any judicial function and have no power to reject them. [Counsel] puts the extreme example of a form which does not name the parties or one which does not include a claim. If such forms were rejected, I suspect that the answer would be that the claimant had not delivered anything which could properly be described as a claim form.

[54]This is an interesting observation because it at least acknowledges that court offices do have a more than automatic job to do when asked to issue a claim, and that there is a proper compliance dimension to their role. It requires officers to do more than close their eyes and stamp whatever is put in front of them. There is no general power or discretion simply to refuse to issue a claim, but whether something is an issuable claim, properly recognisable as such, is a matter that has to be consciously addressed by court staff, at least at some threshold level. The Court in Barnes, twenty years ago, thought the examples given extreme. But court offices today, dealing all the time with a wide range of members of the public seeking to litigate in person, do routinely have to perform important (administrative) compliance and guidance functions. That is entirely necessary, in the interests of the proper administration of justice and in fairness to both claimants and defendants. And court offices cannot always perform those functions instantaneously on tender of documents by claimants – especially if the documentation tendered is voluminous.

[55]Barnes acknowledged that court staff can and do (and perhaps must) discriminate between claims properly so-called, and documents which cannot properly be described as a claim – and reject the latter (decline to issue them). The leading modern authority relevant to this case and this topic is Chelfat v Hutchinson 3G Ltd

[2022] 1 All ER 461

, a decision of the Court of Appeal on facts involving a claim form tendered at the County Court Money Claim Centre (CCMCC) in Salford. It included an address for service on the defendant in Scotland. The court office refused to issue it because the claimant had not also filed the necessary form for service in Scotland. By the time the matter was sorted out and the claim issued, the claimant was facing a strike-out application based on expiry of the limitation period. So it was another case where limitation was put in issue.

[56]The Court followed Barnes in being satisfied PD 7A dealt with the limitation point, but, reviewing the caselaw, added the rider (at [29]) that ‘in order to take advantage of this principle, a claimant must have done all that he or she reasonably could do to bring the matter before the court in the appropriate way (and, I would add, at the appropriate time). In a case like this, a claimant must do what is necessary and sufficient to cause the court to issue the proceedings’.

[57]The Court however went on to ask itself whether the court office had been entitled to refuse to issue the claim on presentation, and whether it had been acting outside its powers (ie unlawfully) in doing so. The Court described that (at [46]) as: … not an entirely straightforward question for two reasons. First, it was accepted in Barnes, and acknowledged during argument in the present case, that there has to be a degree of scrutiny of the documents by court officials and that, as Tuckey LJ put it, if ‘the claimant had not delivered anything which could properly be described as a claim form’, it could not be issued. Secondly, it must be accepted that, since Barnes, the powers of court officials have widened; indeed the CCMCC did not even exist at the time Barnes was decided.

[58]The Court answered the question in Chelfat by underlining that the refusal to issue a claim which was itself in proper form was unjustified by the absence of the accompanying service form. Those facts were not analogous to non-payment of an issue fee because they lacked the necessary direct linkage between compliance and the issue of the claim form: A request by a litigant to issue a claim form is one which he or she is entitled to make. Thereafter, the litigant is completely dependent on the court. His or her legal rights may depend on the timeous issue of that claim form. Accordingly, the court’s primary obligation is to comply with that request. In my view, it would take exceptional circumstances – far beyond the facts of this case – for a court’s refusal to comply with a legitimate request to issue a claim form to be even arguably justified. ([47]).

[59]The acknowledgment in Chelfatthat the lawfulness of a court office’s failure to issue was not an entirely straightforward question is an interesting development in itself, reinforcing the point that a ‘degree of scrutiny’ by court officers to check that the formal requirements for a claim are all present is required, and that in their absence a claim could not be issued. The formulation that there might be exceptional circumstances which could in theory justify a refusal to issue even a ‘legitimate’claim in proper form appears to be new.

[60]Guo v Kinder

[2024] EWCA Civ 762

contains some interesting post-Chelfatobiter dicta from the Court of Appeal. That was a case concerning a claim form lodged at the High Court and headed ‘Queen’s Bench Division, Commercial Court, Financial List’. This was ambiguous, because claims issued in the Financial List had to be issued in the Chancery Division. The court office did not issue the claim but instead queried with the claimant which Division of the High Court she wished the claim to be issued in. The Court observed (at [51]) that the office was entitled to do that. It is recognisable as an example of a court office exercising its ‘degree of scrutiny’ function and lawfully deciding that what it had been presented with ‘could not be issued’.

[61]Although no question of form arises in the present case about the Claimant’s Form N1 taken in isolation from all the accompanying documentation, the Claimant has, over the course of this litigation, sought to insist that the claim be issued in precisely the form in which it was presented to the Court Office that Friday afternoon. This is a case, in other words, not about whether something was missing from or plainly ambiguous about the Form N1 in and of itself, but about whether material ostensibly incorporated into it caused a problem of the form of the claim rendering it potentially unissuable as tendered.

[62]That raises a not necessarily artificial question about the relationship between the four corners of a Form N1 taken by itself, and an endeavour to attach material to that form or incorporate material into it – and an antecedent question about whether the Form N1 by itself (or possibly the Form N1 plus the particulars of claim where tendered simultaneously) is the ‘claim for issue’ or whether it must be the whole assemblage tendered. I say it is not necessarily artificial in this case because DJ Richardson’s Order (a) recited ‘the court noting that the claim form attaches and appears intended to incorporate not only a statement of case (Particulars of Claim) but numerous other documents including various applications, a witness statement, and an indexed bundle of documents, all running to 583 pages in total, and(b) referred in its operative provisions to the ‘583 page claim forms’. In any event, the Judge can be seen here as taking a view that at least a potential question of form arose, sufficient properly to engage the Court Office’s ‘degree of scrutiny’ or compliance functions.

(d) The power and freedom to consult a judge

[63]The ‘degree of scrutiny’ point leads on to the third prism through which it is necessary to consider the question in the present case of whether the Court Office acted unlawfully. It is notable that none of the authorities dealt with a factual matrix such as the present, in which the Court Office did not simply omit, delay or directly refuse to issue the Claimant’s claim, or revert to the Claimant with queries before issuing, but instead referred all the documentation promptly to a judge for directions.

[64]Mr Knight KC encouraged me to take that set of facts as a cue to consider the actions of the Court Office through the lens of Part 3 of the CPR, a matter on which I was taken to no analogous guidance from the appellate authorities. Looked at in this way, the question before me potentially resolves itself into one about whether the Court Office had the authority of Part 3 for the lawfulness of its course of conduct – or possibly a rather more fundamental question about whether it is right to characterise what happened as a refusal or failure to issue the claim by the Office at all. Mr Tomlinson KC put it to me that the circumstances of the present case amounted to a refusal by the Court Office to issue a claim submitted on a proper Form N1. But I have to consider things one step at a time. And I have no evidence about what in fact the court officials in the present case thought, or about the detail of what they did, at the time.

[65]CPR 3.2 empowers court officers at large, where a step is to be taken by them, to consult a judge first. That is not on the face of it restricted in any way, and there are beyond doubt good underlying public policy reasons for that. Mr Knight KC put it to me that it is in the interests of all litigants, and of the administration of justice, for court officials, if in any doubt about the exercise of their functions (powers or duties), to have ready access to authoritative guidance or rulings on points of practice and procedure. There is also the converse point that it may be of assistance to judges to be alerted to circumstances in which they may wish to consider the exercise of any powers to make case management decisions and orders of the court’s own motion before officers take a particular step. And there is perhaps an important third consideration: the protection of court staff themselves from being caught in procedural crossfire and dragged into litigation. The principle of unfettered access by court staff to judges might well be thought in all these circumstances to be fundamental to the modern architecture of the administration of justice.

[66]CPR 3.2 applies ‘where a step is to be taken by a court officer’. In context, ‘is to be taken’ is capable of comprehending circumstances in which a step is about to be taken (action in contemplation) and those in which a step is required to be taken (the discharge of a duty). I can see no basis from first principlesfor interpreting CPR 3.2 as excluding from its ambit the ‘step’ of issuing a claim, includingany step in the exercise of the ‘degree of scrutiny’ function. And I am reinforced in that view by the White Book commentary making specific reference to court officers’ functions in relation to the issue of claim forms in this context, and its view that court offices are empowered to consult before taking any step in relation to ‘any such document, form or request for judgment which appears to be irregular or inappropriate’.

[67]If a court officer is in doubt about whether a claim has been tendered in issuable form, or, in a case such as the present where voluminous material has been tendered, about what (if anything) to issue as constituting the claim, then I can see no basis of principle on which to conclude otherwise than that a court office is empowered or entitled to refer the matter to a judge for guidance, direction and/or consideration of the exercise of any formal case management functions available to the court in due course. Mr Tomlinson KC did not argue otherwise – that is, from principle.

[68]CPR 3.2 contemplates that the act of consulting a judge engages the possibility that the ‘step’ may be taken, in whole or in part, by the judge themselves, a matter considered further below. In any event, the act of consulting necessarily contemplates a power to await a reply.

[69]If that is right, it would further reinforce the timing point considered above. If a court office is expressly entitled to consult a judge over a compliance question of form arising about the issue of a claim before proceeding to issue it, that leaves no room for an unqualified duty to issue what is tendered immediately upon tender.

[70]All of that analysis is, however, subject to the provision on which the present Claimant places much reliance: Practice Direction 3A at paragraph 2.1. This is a provision which is directed specifically to the matter of issuing a claim. Mr Tomlinson KC seeks to draw from it a general rule that if a court office is asked to issue a claim, but believes it may be defective, ‘they should issue it’ and only thereafter exercise the power to consult a judge. Mr Knight KC submits that this provision has to be understood to subsist in the realm of good practice guidance and is not capable as a matter of law of being read as displacing or abridging officials’ fundamental freedom of access to a judge. If he is right about the fundamental nature of that freedom, then ‘they should issue it’ before consulting a judge is not an unqualified legal obligation on court offices, it is an indication of what in the ordinary course of events it would be right to do.

[71]In my judgment, the key to understanding PD 3A [2.1] is to focus on its specific cross-reference to CPR 3.4(2)(a) and (b). These contain two of the three familiar grounds on which a court may strike out a claimant’s statement of case –(a) it discloses no reasonable grounds for bringing a claim and

(b) it is an abuse of the court’s process or otherwise likely to obstruct the just disposal of the proceedings. These are always decisions for a judge and never for a court office. They provide no basis in themselves for a court office either to form its own definitive views about the merits of a claim or decline to issue a claim for that reason. PD 3A [2.1] is a simple statement of that reality: if a court office forms a view that a judge may want early sight of a potentially unmeritorious or defective claim in order to exercise the court’s general case-management powers, then the correct order of events is to make a reference to a judge for that purpose but to get on with issuing the claim in the meantime. The reason is clear. Any view the court office may itself form about these matters could not give grounds for declining to issue the claim and has no relevant connection to the function of issuing a claim.

[72]The third familiar strike-out ground – (c) that there has been a failure to comply with a rule, practice direction or court order – is notably omitted from the scope of PD 3A [2.1]. That is not an accident. Rules and orders of the court may be matters of legal compliance capable of binding court offices. And there may, as we have seen, be a range of matters of legal compliance with which court offices may or must be concerned, including those matters of form going to whether or how a claim may or must be issued in the first place. I derive no instruction or guidance from PD 3A [2.1] that in these circumstances court offices must act (or issue) first and consult afterwards. It simply does not apply in these circumstances, and I can see no argument of principle, practice or common sense for reading it as though it does.

(e) Conclusions

[73]The Court Office in Durham was not, on Friday 22nd November 2024, purporting to exercise any general discretion to refuse to issue the Claimant’s claim. No such general discretion exists. Nor did it take a decision on its own account to refuse to issue a claim on its merits. Nor did it simply omit or neglect to issue, or delay doing so.

[74]The Court Office was faced with a claim brought by way of a Form N1 which was itself on the face of it unexceptionable but which attached (or incorporated?) a large amount of other material in hard copy. That was not a routine set of circumstances. It was fairly capable of raising a material doubt in the minds of the officers about what should be done. Accede to the Claimant’s request to issue and process the paperwork in its entirety? Or issue the Form N1 (and particulars of claim?) and return the rest (contrary to the Claimant’s wishes)? Or decline to issue at all on the ground that the entirety of the documentation was irregular and inappropriate, could not therefore be called ‘a claim’ and could not properly be issued at all? It engaged, in other words, the Office’s proper and lawful function of applying a degree of compliance scrutiny to the request to issue this claim.

[75]In these circumstances, the Court Office did not act unlawfully in declining to issue there and then. Nor did it act unlawfully in consulting a judge before taking the decisive step of issuing or declining to issue the claim (in whole or in part), and in awaiting the outcome of that consultation. On the contrary, it acted lawfully, rationally and prudently in doing so. And its actions were incapable of impacting the limitation question – which turned on whether a claim was properly brought on the Friday afternoon or not.

[76]What happened next was that DJ Richardson made an Order directing the entirety of the documentation to be returned to the Claimant for editing and resubmission. That Order was, on the face of it at least, binding on the Court Office – and prevented it from issuing the claim as tendered by the Claimant unless and until complied with. So not only did it no longer have any duty to get on and issue the claim, it had no power to do so otherwise than on the terms ostensibly provided for by the Judge.

[77]In these circumstances, my answer to the principal question before me in these judicial review proceedings – which can perhaps best finally be formulated as asking whether the fact that the Claimant’s tendered claim has not to date been issued is attributable to any unlawful act or unlawful failure to act on the part of the Court Office in Durham – is ‘no’.

[78]I add a brief footnote. The relief Mr Tomlinson KC asked me to grant in the event that I upheld his primary submissions was(a) a declaration that the Court Office had acted unlawfully and

(b) an order mandating it to issue the claim as brought. We discussed at the hearing my concerns that this would set up a direct conflict between the Judges’ extant orders and any order I might make granting the relief he sought on the Claimant’s behalf. That is a state of affairs a court will generally decline to bring about on basic rule of law principles. A court office cannot fairly be required by law to do two mutually exclusive things at the same time.

[79]Mr Tomlinson KC suggested that the answer to that would be(a) the fact that the effect of the most recent of DJ Hambler’s orders dealing with issue of a claim had been stayed by the orders of HHJ Freedman, and

(b) that HHJ Freedman’s Order of 29th August 2025 directed the Claimant to apply for further directions from the County Court ‘once the Court of Appeal has determined the Appeal against the refusal to grant Judicial Review.’ That provision is by common consent to be read in the circumstances as now embracing the outcome of the judicial review proceedings themselves.

[80]I can see the pragmatic sense of that – the position of the Court Office could be regularised by prioritising in temporal order the duty that would be imposed by the High Court order while the County Court orders were sorted out by the Court itself. I continued to hesitate over whether that would be a complete answer to the legal principle engaged. But even if it were, the point remains that any such High Court order directed to the County Court Office would at the least be inconsistent with the orders made by the County Court Judges. Those orders could not stand as they are, and that outcome would have to be resolved by order of one court or another.

[81]As I have concluded that the Court Office did not act unlawfully, I am not going to make the order Mr Tomlinson KC asked for, so the issue does not arise directly. I am invited by Mr Tomlinson KC’s alternative submissions to operate on the Judges’ Orders myself directly in any event, and it is to that matter that I turn next. However, I conclude this section of the judgment by observing that a situation, in which a High Court order mandating the Court Office to issue the Claimant’s claim would be inconsistent with the Judges’ Orders, underlines the point with which I concluded the present analysis: the fact that the claim remains unissued is not attributable to any unlawful act or omission of the Court Office. It is the product of the sequence of Orders, or the Judges’ decisions reflected in them, made by the Judges in response to the Office’s referral of the claim documentation for their consideration.

Analysis Part II: the Judges

(a) Preliminary

[82]These judicial review proceedings, and the secondary or alternative submissions of Mr Tomlinson KC, seek to challenge the decisions of DJ Richardson and DJ Hambler in so far as they have a bearing on the (non-)issue of the Claimant’s claim. I put the matter that way, and with care, because of what I have already said about the scope of these judicial review proceedings.

[83]In the County Court proceedings, the Claimant has sought to challenge that decision-making in the context of root and branch objections to all aspects of the two Judges’ successive Orders. In the case of DJ Richardson’s Order of 27th November 2024, that challenge was by way of an application to have it set aside, and that application was successful: the Order ceased to have operative legal effect when set aside by District Judge Hambler, and has no operative legal effect with which judicial review proceedings can engage now.

[84]The Claimant objects to the way DJ Hambler’s Order then went on to deal with the matter of claim issue. But I can see nothing in the proposition that DJ Richardson’s Order somehow lives on in any relevant way. It was set aside in its entirety. It may have constituted the reason no claim was issued at the time, but it is not the reason there is no issued claim now. Judicial review proceedings are not concerned with unwinding past history; they can provide operative relief only in respect of operative decisions in the present.

[85]It is accordingly with the decision-making apparent in DJ Hambler’s Order of 31st March 2025, to the extent that it is a present operative cause of no claim having been issued, that I am principally concerned. Again, I put it that way with some care. I am not being asked in these judicial review proceedings myself to undertake a root and branch analysis of all of the provision ostensibly made in this Order. I am being asked to explore what it is about DJ Hambler’s decision-making that has precluded the issue of the Claimant’s claim, and whether that preclusion is an unlawful state of affairs in which a Court of Review can and should intervene in order to effect rectification.

[86]It is uncontroversial in these proceedings that judicial acts carried out in a judicial capacity are not in general susceptible to judicial review, both as a matter of constitutional principle and not least where statutory routes of appeal are available. Routes of appeal are not only provided in relation to the relevant Orders of DJ Hambler in the present case, they are actively being pursued (albeit those proceedings are stayed pending the outcome of these judicial review proceedings). Mr Tomlinson KC makes two submissions in these circumstances: first, that on the authorities already canvassed above, issuing a claim is an administrative act, and the Judges were acting administratively and not judicially in intervening on the matter of issue; and second, that, in the alternative, in failing to direct, or blocking, the issue of a claim, or making issue subject to conditions, the Judges’ conduct engaged that exceptional category of circumstances in which judicial acts may be amenable to judicial review as disclosing a fundamental lack of underlying power or jurisdiction and/or being inconsistent with the due administration of justice. (b). Administrative or judicial?

[87]Mr Knight KC made an objection, on the point of constitutional principle, to the proposition that the Judges were acting administratively and not judicially when they acted in relation to the issue of the claim. He put it this way in his skeleton argument: On this issue of characterisation, HMCTS is not neutral. A decision by a judge, recorded in an order, is a judicial act in a judicial capacity. It must be approached as such. That is why the Claimant applied to set the First Order aside (not a relevant course of action against an administrative act) and to appeal the Second Order (likewise). It is why HMCTS takes a neutral stance on the substance of this Claim, so as to avoid any risk of interference with judicial independence. In the present case the decision in question was that the County Court Claim should not be issued prior to compliance with certain directions (multiple in the First Order, and more limited in the Second Order), and that decision was taken by a District Judge, recorded in the First Order and then (as the Claimant submits) maintained by a different District Judge following a hearing, recorded in the Second Order.

[88]Mr Tomlinson KC did not – realistically and wisely, in my judgment – pursue this point into the statute and caselaw on the distinction between judicial and administrative acts, and I am satisfied I do not need to do so either. His submissions instead appealed to the logic that if, to use the formulation in Barnes, receipt of the claim form by the court involves no ‘transactional act’ and ‘the court staff who receive the documents are not performing any judicial function and have no power to reject them’ then the matter of issuing a claim is inherently administrative and retains that character when, for example, CPR 3.2 is engaged and a judge, rather than directing the court office, takes ‘the step’ – that is, any step relating to the issue or non-issue of a claim – themselves.

[89]I agree with Mr Knight KC, however, that the logic is the other way around. Just because a court office can act administratively in the matter of issuing a claim (or anything else) does not mean a judge does so when dealing with that matter in an order. There might be room for debate if a judge simply advises or instructs a Court Office to take steps in relation to issuing a claim rather than giving formal directions. But there is in my judgment no room for debate that making a court order is a judicial and not an administrative act, whatever its content. To the extent that the Judges’ Orders are addressed in these judicial review proceedings, I was shown no authority, and heard no argument of principle, to encourage the view that it is the business of a Court of Judicial Review to parse the content of court orders into judicial and administrative matters. It is not the fact that a judge did or did not need to proceed by way of an order that is the relevant characteristic, it is that fact that a judge has proceeded by way of an order.

[90]Of course, what is complained about principally in relation to DJ Hambler’s Order addresses what it did not do. It did not direct the Court Office to issue any claim. That was a deliberate ‘step not taken’ – judicially or administratively. But it is in my view an over-sophisticated analysis to seek to maintain that the Judge’s decision not to direct the Court Office to issue is amenable to judicial review simply on the ground that that could have been effected outside an Order. It was common ground before me that it was the Judge’s decision-making about the issue of the claim, as apparent from his Orders, with which I needed to be concerned. I bear in mind in any event that what these Orders did was to place (ostensibly) legally mandatory conditions on the issue of a claim – not a matter which could be described as an administrative act on any basis, and not one which would have been available in law to any court office.

[91]I am not prepared in these circumstances to proceed on the basis that the Orders in this case are amenable to judicial review on a simple ground that they were or contained (or omitted) administrative acts. Nevertheless, in what follows, I do bear in mind that the relief to which these proceedings are ultimately addressed – the issue of a claim – is something which would now have to be achieved by some form of formal (judicial) direction to the Court Office to perform the (administrative) procedure of issuing a claim.

(c) Amenability of County Court orders to judicial review

[92]The most recent formulation of the law relating to judicial review of County Court judges’ decisions in exercise of their judicial functions is found in decisions of the Court of Appeal in R (Sivasubramaniam) v Wandsworth County Court

[2003] 1 WLR 475

, Gregory v Turner

[2003] 1 WLR 1149

, and R (Strickson) v Preston County Court

[2007] EWCA Civ 1132

. In Strickson, Laws LJ reviewed the earlier decisions and formulated a definition of the sort of ‘fundamental’ defects or errors of law which ought to be recognised as taking a County Court decision beyond the appellate system and into the sphere of judicial review. He put it this way (at [32]): How should such a defect be described in principle? I think a distinction may be drawn between a case where the judge simply gets it wrong, even extremely wrong (and wrong on the law, or the facts, or both), and a case where, as I would venture to put it, the judicial process itself has been frustrated or corrupted. This, I think, marks the truly exceptional case. It will or may include the case of pre-Anisminic jurisdictional error, where the court embarks upon an enquiry which it lacks all power to deal with, or fails altogether to enquire or adjudicate upon a matter which it was its unequivocal duty to address. It would include substantial denial of the right to a fair hearing, and it may include cases where the lower court has indeed acted ‘in complete disregard of its duties’ (Gregory), and cases where the court has declined to go into a point of law in a particular area which, against a background of conflicting decisions of a lower tribunal, the public interest obviously requires to be decided (Sinclair). The Sinclair type of case is perhaps a sub-class of the Gregory case. Both, in any event, may be less hard-edged than the pure pre-Anisminic jurisdictional error case. The courts will have to be vigilant to see that only truly exceptional cases – where there has indeed, as I have put it, been frustration or corruption of the very judicial process – are allowed to proceed to judicial review in cases where further appeal rights are barred by section 54(4).

[93]This sets, on any basis, a very high bar. The amenability of a decision of a lower court to judicial review is of course a conceptually different question from whether, if a decision is amenable and error is identified, the High Court should decline to exercise its discretion to grant relief on the basis that a claimant has a sufficient alternative remedy by way of appeal. But it is interesting that the Strickson test appears to have been engaged in the reported cases principally to challenge refusals of permission to appeal – that is, decisions bringing claims to a complete halt otherwise. I was shown no case analogous to the present case in which the Strickson test has been found to have been satisfied.

[94]Returning to the authorities on the issue of claims, therefore, the challenge made in the present case is that I can and should regard the present case as truly exceptional and/or a frustration of the judicial process. Put at its simplest, Mr Tomlinson KC’s criticism of the Judge’s Orders is that there is no basis to be found in the CPR or the authorities conferring any power on the Court to make the issue of a properly-constituted claim subject to conditions. Put at its highest, it is an argument that the issue of a claim is a necessary precondition for the exercise of the sort of case management powers the Judges purported to exercise in the first place. But mindful of(a) what I have already said about the limited scope of these judicial review proceedings and

(b) the vigilance to which I am enjoined by Strickson itself and the absence of authority approaching the present factual matrix, I consider it necessary to proceed in this matter with caution, and at a more inquisitorial level of detail, than those high-level propositions invite in themselves.

[95]On my analysis above, what happened in this case was that the Court Office, faced with the Claimant’s request to issue the entirety of the material submitted asa claim, andapplying a proper ‘degree of scrutiny’ to the question of whether that might properly refer to all, some or any of this material, exercised its freedom to consult a judge.

[96]DJ Richardson, in these circumstances, proceeded, as already noted, on the basis that ‘the claim form attaches, and appears intended to incorporate, not only a statement of case (Particulars of Claim) but numerous other documents including various applications, a witness statement, and an indexed bundle of documents, all running to 583 pages in total’. And as further already noted, DJ Richardson was apparently right about the Claimant’s intention – it does appear to have been consistently maintained by the Claimant (including by Mr Tomlinson KC in these JR proceedings) that that whole package was indeed what the Claimant wanted to see issued as a claim: and that was the request the Claimant expressly made at the time. In any event, it is apparent that DJ Richardson understood that he himself, like the Court Office, was facing a threshold compliance question of whether the 583-page composite or incorporated document was a claim in a proper form in which it could be issued – or not. That was the, or a, main reason it had been referred to him.

[97]As explained, I need not be concerned for present purposes with the detail of DJ Richardson’s reply to that question, as contained in his Order of 27th November 2024. That Order is no longer an operative cause of there being no claim issued. It is DJ Hambler’s Order of 31st March 2025 that I need to consider, bearing the Strickson test in mind.

(d) Issuability: the ‘first stage question’

[98]I return to the point that the factual scenario in the present case, for form compliance purposes, was not one in which something might be missing from a claim as tendered or there was some ambiguity of intent. It was one in which there was a question of potential and substantial superfluity (a form compliance question which does not appear to have been tested in the senior courts before now). A potential problem of superfluity, properly analysed, contains two compliance questions to be decided: first, was the composite bundle of documentation tendered by the Claimant a claim in proper form capable of being issued as such, as the Claimant contended? And second, if not, did it nevertheless contain, within its superfluity, a claim in proper form, capable of being issued as such if shorn of superfluous material?

[99]It is this two-stage inquiry that is, in itself, the novel ‘form compliance’ question in this case. But it derives directly from the formulation in Barnes that a Court considering form compliance, whether by its judiciary or its officers, is properly engaged on an inquiry into whether or not a claimant has delivered ‘anything’ which could properly be described as a claim form.

[100]As to the first stage, it is in my judgment clear enough that DJ Hambler concluded (as set out in the recitals to his Order) that the whole 583-page bundle was not itself, as a composite whole, and never had been, a claim capable of being issued in that form. He answered the first question in the negative. It was to that extent a decision adverse to the Claimant’s wishes.

[101]Was he not lawfully entitled to reach that conclusion? I articulate the question not to give it an answer turning on its own merits (these are not appeal proceedings) but to start to test whether we may be in Strickson territory.

[102]I have already set out why I am satisfied the Judge was entitled to ask himself the question in the first place. A legitimate question of form compliance arose in relation to the claim as tendered, and judicial guidance or direction had been reasonably sought. The legitimacy, and nature, of the question can perhaps be tested by positing the counterfactual question: does a claimant have an unfettered legal entitlement to incorporate into their claim for issue any amount of unnecessary, irrelevant, inappropriate and/or improper material it occurs to them to insert for reasons which (ex hypothesi) can have nothing whatever to do with the legally-operative matter of issuing a claim?

[103]The question facing the Court was, on the present facts, if anything even more acute than that. The material the Claimant sought to incorporate into the claim for issue – application forms, evidence – was not, in litigation terms, legally inert or legally trivial material. The Civil Procedure Rules fundamentally discriminate between claims, applications and evidence. They are distinct legal entities with different meanings, implications and consequences – and may require temporal sequencing, not least in relation to what a defendant is expected to do with them. The question before the Judge was not after all simply one of potential superfluity or irrelevance. It was properly capable of being recognised as one of disambiguation – was a bundle of disparate legal documents ‘a claim’ for issue, as opposed to a bundle containing a claim? From first principles I am unpersuaded the answer the Judge was legally compelled to give to that (on Strickson principles) was ‘yes’ – and I was certainly shown nothing in the CPR or the authorities suggesting otherwise. If this was a legitimate question of claim form compliance in the first place, it was not a question to which there could only ever be one legitimate (as opposed to ‘right’) answer.

[104]In any event, even if the Judge gave the wrong answer to the question, I struggle to recognise in his decision – that the 583 page document was not itself an issuable claim in that form – any truly exceptional failure orfrustration or corruption of the judicial process. I can see it is possible to debate what might and might not be properly described as extraneous in any given case (and that that could be susceptible to argument on appeal). But even if a judge has got that wrong in any respect, even badly wrong, I cannot see anything in that approaching a frustration of the judicial process or a substantial denial of the right to a fair hearing. Aside from the limitation and appeal points (to which I shall return) I heard no articulation of any jeopardy to the Claimant said to flow from a decision that the claim contained potentially confusing superfluity and could not be issued as tendered. And that is because there is a second stage to the compliance inquiry where the first stage is answered in the negative.

[105]In any event, the Judge here did not make a decision preventing or impeding the issue of something plainly recognisable as a straightforwardly issuable claim for reasons unconnected with its issuability. That might well have engaged the Stricksontest. He made a decision that what had been tendered was not, in its entirety, an issuable claim; it was an agglomeration of different legal materials. He was properly and necessarily seised of this question. He was clearly focused not on preventing or impeding but on assisting the Claimant to initiate the claim in a manner in which it could recognisably be identified and issued as such (and not confused with anything else).

[106]If the Claimant had complied with the Judge’s Order in the matter of issue (pending the appeal), it is clear enough to me that the claim would have been issued at that point as directed by the Order (it does not say so in terms, but I am satisfied that is the necessary implication of the provision at [3] that the claim as reduced would be duly served on the Defendants by the Court). I have heard no compelling explanation for the Claimant’s declining to do so, other than to assert a principle of being legally entitled to incorporate unrestricted content into a claim, or that a claimant’s judgment on what constitutes an issuable claim must trump a judge’s. As I say, I return to the matters of limitation and appeal below, but I remind myself at this point of the dicta in Chelfat that ‘a claimant must do what is necessary and sufficient to cause the court to issue the proceedings’. The role of the Claimant’s own choices as continuing operative causes of the present circumstances in which no claim has been issued cannot be completely overlooked.

(e) Issuability: the ‘second stage question’

[107]My analysis leads to a conclusion that the Judge decided the 583-page claim the Claimant tendered was not a form-compliant ‘claim’ issuable in that form, and that that is not in itself a decision with which I am persuaded to interfere on a claim for judicial review. But there has to be a second stage to any compliance challenge based on superfluity – whether what the Claimant tendered nevertheless contained a form-compliant and issuable claim.

[108]What if anything the Judge decided about that second-stage question is not so straightforward to discern. Matters had moved on since the claim was originally tendered. The Claimant had asked for (pre-issue) permission to amend the Form N1 and particulars of claim to rename some of the Defendants. Permission had been given for that. So those documents would have had to be refiled in any event to give effect to that outcome, and the Claimant was given a limited window of opportunity to do so.

[109]In those circumstances, the Judge did not deal directly with the question of whether, even if it was not a claim in issuable form, what the Claimant originally tendered nevertheless contained an issuable claim (at least the Form N1) which could and should have been directed to be issued as such in the first place, notwithstanding the Claimant’s objections. He moved straight from a decision that the claim was not issuable as first tendered to a decision making arrangements for the issue of a claim amended as the Claimant requested. Perhaps he did not need to do otherwise for his immediate purposes.

[110]It is nevertheless in my view a clear enough inference on the basis of his Order that the Judge had not identified any form-compliance objection to either the Form N1 or the particulars of claim, taken together, as the Claimant had originally tendered them. And the matter of form compliance was squarely before him. He recorded no objection to the Form N1 itself. He recited that the ‘Particulars of claim although lengthy may stand without further amendment’.I cannot discern in this a decision adverse to the Claimant as such.

[111]The implications and consequences of this were not clearly articulated or developed in submissions before me. Mr Tomlinson KC put the matter to me on something of an all or nothing basis, as indeed the Claimant has consistently done – either the Judges had been obliged to direct the issue of the claim as first tendered (and he maintained they were) or they were not obliged to direct the issue of anything. But I do not think the question reducible to that simple binary form. Had there been no application to amend before the Judge, he would surely have had to grasp the nettle of whether the Claimant was entitled at least to have (and to have had) the original Form N1 and particulars of claim issued as a claim – and by the Court.

[112]It is a question of some potential relevance to the ultimate outcome of all this litigation. That is because behind it is the even more fundamental question of whether the Claimant brought ‘a claim’ on 24th November 2024 – the limitation question. The limitation question is not a question the Judge decided. He was not asked to decide it. Mr Knight KC put it to me that he could not have decided it fairly (at any rate in the Claimant’s favour) without hearing from the Defendants. But it is a question which is bound up with the form-compliance question. That is because of the linkage made in PD 7A [6.1] between the claim ‘as issued’ by the Court, the claim ‘received in the court office’, and the claim ‘brought’ by a claimant. PD 7A [6.1] reads naturally as requiring all of these to be the same claim.

[113]The Claimant has so far pursued only one of two possible solutions to that requirement for identity between claim brought and claim (to be) issued – that is, by asserting an entitlement to have all the material originally tendered issued as a claim. That is not a solution he has yet managed to get endorsed by any court (his County Court appeal application remains outstanding). But there is another possible solution: that the Claimant was (and is) entitled to have the Form N1 and particulars of claim as tendered on 24th November 2024 recognised as a claim brought, a claim received in the Court Office, and a claim to be issued (subject to any overlay of amendment the Claimant subsequently sought and for which permission has been given). And if my reading of the Judge’s decision is correct, it presents no obstacle to that solution.

[114](And if, contrary to my conclusions about the amenability of DJ Richardson’s set aside Order to judicial review, I had been considering that Order also, I do not think it presents any obstacle either. It is possible to read DJ Richardson’s Order as a direction to the Claimant to bring the claim afresh at that point, on the ground that nothing which could be properly described as a claim had yet been tendered. But it is also possible to read it as consistent with an acknowledgment that the N1 Form at least had all along truly constituted the claim the Claimant had originally brought.

(f) Conclusions

[115]The Judges in this case must be recognised to have decided that the bundle of material tendered by the Claimant was not recognisable as a claim capable of being issued in that form. I have called that the ‘first stage’ decision and, right or wrong, I do not consider it to be susceptible to judicial review. That is because it was not by itself determinative of the viability or issuability of the Claimant’s claim. And that in turn is because there is a ‘second stage’ to the compliance inquiry, which is whether what the Claimant tendered nevertheless included a claim capable of being issued.

[116]That is another way of putting my conclusion that the Order of DJ Hambler of 18th/31st March 2025 (and, to the extent the question is not academic in view of its having now been set aside in its entirety, the Order of DJ Richardson dated 27th November 2024) are not amenable to judicial review through the exceptional gateway of the Strickson test. There was a legitimate question before the Judges about whether, as the Claimant maintained, what had been tendered to the Court Office was, in its entirety, ‘a claim’ such that the Court was legally obliged to issue it in that precise form. That was not an exercise in embarking upon an enquiry the Court lacked all power to deal with; it was on the contrary an exercise in discharging a pre-issue compliance function which the authorities have recognised as appropriate and sometimes necessary. The Judges answered that question in the negative.

[117]Even if that was the wrong answer, it was not a decision which, in and of itself, finally disposed of any question recognisable as going to merits or viability of the Claimant’s claim; on the contrary, DJ Hambler’s Order was making active provision for the issue and service of the claim. It did not shut the door on the Claimant’s access to justice. If it was a wrong decision it was rectifiable on appeal. The availability of appeal routes is not dependent on a claim’s having been issued (Table 1 in Practice Direction 52A confirms that, bar certain exceptions inapplicable here, an appeal route to a Circuit Judge is available in respect of ‘any decision’ of a District Judge). The appellate courts possess full powers to adjudicate on the Claimant’s legal rights in this particular matter of issue, and to direct the Court Office to issue the claim as tendered, or in any other form, if that was a decision it reached (or was required to reach).

[118]I cannot conclude in these circumstances that the Judges’ decision, that what the Claimant tendered was not as an aggregate whole ‘a claim’ issuable in that form, is properly amenable to judicial review. It does not pass the Strickson test. I am mindful of the guidance of the Court of Appeal to be vigilant about proposals to broaden the category of truly exceptional cases to which it is capable of applying. I am not persuaded to do so in the present case.

[119]At the second stage of the compliance inquiry, DJ Hambler found no form-compliance objection to the Form N1 and particulars of claim the Claimant tendered. He did not therefore foreclose on the question of whether or not the Claimant had brought ‘a claim’ on 24th November 2024, or whether the Court Office had received ‘a claim’ on that date, which was issuable, albeit in a form different from that which the Claimant had and has sought to insist upon up to now. I do not recognise in that a decision adverse to the Claimant, or susceptible to judicial review. On the contrary, the view taken of that matter which is discernible from the Judge’s decision is, objectively, in the Claimant’s favour.

Decision and next steps

[120]The Court Office did not act unlawfully in declining to issue the full documentation tendered by the Claimant on 24th November 2024 as ‘a claim’, but instead referring that documentation to a judge and awaiting a response. The Court Office was entitled to consider the response in the form of the Judges’ Orders as binding. The Court Office did not unlawfully cause the current situation in which no claim has been issued. I reject the claim for judicial review in so far as it is addressed to the conduct of the Court Office.

[121]The Judges’ decisions challenged in these judicial review proceedings are not properly amenable to judicial review. They made no decision capable of being characterised in the terms set out in Strickson, or having the effect of frustrating the due County Court process, or of conclusively denying or blocking the Claimant’s access to justice, or of being ultimately determinative of the viability or merits of the Claimant’s claim. In particular, they do not even address or have necessarily adverse implications for the matter of limitation, about which the Claimant has expressed some anxiety in these proceedings. I reject the claim for judicial review in so far as it is addressed to the Judges’ decision-making.

[122]The Claimant’s claim for judicial review is accordingly dismissed.

[123]The Claimant is, nevertheless, entitled to the benefit of the analysis set out in this judgment to this extent. On the basis that DJ Hambler must be taken to have recognised that the Form N1 and particulars of claim tendered by the Claimant were unexceptionable and recognisable as ‘a claim’, included in what the Claimant originally tendered to the Court Office and capable of being issued in that limited form – because he found no compliance deficit in them and was prepared to see them issued in that form subject only to the amendments the Claimant later requested – the necessary implication of that as things stand is that that was and is at least an answer to which the Claimant had been entitled all along, whether or not the Claimant was entitled to have the whole bundle issued as a claim. That was logically the minimum answer the Claimant had been entitled to be given by DJ Richardson, along with a direction to the Court Office accordingly. And if it is the answer the Claimant has (subject to the matter of its execution) been given by DJ Hambler, it is the minimum answer to which the Claimant is entitled now, as the County Court decision-making stands.

[124]I am conscious that the next step in this litigation is due to be a directions hearing in the Claimant’s application for permission to appeal the Order of DJ Hambler in its entirety. It is of course entirely a matter for the Claimant whether and how far that application is now pursued, and for a Circuit Judge to determine its progress and its outcome in due course if called upon to do so. It is a matter for the Claimant whether or not to continue to press for the entirety of the claim tendered to be issued as such. The outcome of these judicial review proceedings is, however, authority for the Claimant’s entitlement, as things stand at present, to ask the County Court (if so advised) for an immediate direction to the Court Office to issue the Form N1 and particulars of claim as originally tendered.