“I thank Mr Justice Cobb for his concerns over my ill health … I will not obtain a medical note, won't be attending court21/03/2024 , but will appeal any decision that does not involve the immediate return of my [child].”
“An appeal would be hopeless. The judge fairly and carefully considered all relevant matters and made an order that was sadly necessary to protect [T] and that had the unanimous support of the professional witnesses.”
“I have certified the application as totally without merit because your arguments are legally incoherent and abusive. You have an established history of making baseless and indiscriminate allegations that distract from the real issues and you have already been the subject of a civil restraint order.”
“The contents of [EM]’s emails consist of complaints about a Judge and their conduct, the judicial system, complaints about the administration and the system, a refusal to communicate with the courts or Judge and copies of complaints to ministers and media organisations”
“[The Respondent] has inundated the court with email correspondence and applications to such an extent as to interfere with other court business and the interests of other litigants, as well as making the proceedings herein extremely difficult to manage. The amount of communications and applications from [the Respondent] to the court is exceptionally excessive even allowing for the strong feelings the care proceedings will have generated”
“[58] As explained by the Court of Appeal in the leading case of Bhamjee v Forsdick[2004] 1 WLR 88 , the rationale for the regime of civil restraint orders is that a litigant who makes claims or applications which have absolutely no merit harms the administration of justice by wasting the limited time and resources of the courts. Such claims and applications consume public funds and divert the courts from dealing with cases which have real merit. Litigants who repeatedly make hopeless claims or applications impose costs on others for no good purpose and usually at little or no cost to themselves. Typically such litigants have time on their hands and no means of paying any costs of litigation – so they are entitled to remission of court fees and the prospect of an order for costs against them is no deterrent. In these circumstances there is a strong public interest in protecting the court system from abuse by imposing an additional restraint on their use of the court's resources. [59] It is important to note that a civil restraint order does not prohibit access to the courts. It merely requires a person who has repeatedly made wholly unmeritorious claims or applications to have any new claim or application which falls within the scope of the order reviewed by a judge at the outset to determine whether it should be permitted to proceed. The purpose of a civil restraint order is simply to protect the court's process from abuse, and not to shut out claims or applications which are properly arguable.” (Emphasis by underlining added).
“It has taken up countless court and judge hours as both parties, incapable of compromise, have bombarded the court with endless applications, such that [counsel for the appellant] now tells the court the judge has had to make orders that neither party may make an application without the leave of the court. The refusal of either party to accept any ruling or decision of the court has meant that the court staff and judge have been inundated with emails, which they have had to deal with as best they could, with limited time and even more limited resources. The inevitable consequence has been that matters have been dealt with "on the hoof" on occasion without formal applications or subsequent decisions being converted into formal rulings or orders.”
“Whilst every judge is sympathetic to the challenges faced by litigants in person, justice simply cannot be done through a torrent of informal, unfocussed emails, often sent directly to the judge and not to the other parties. Neither the judge nor the court staff can, or should, be expected to field communications of this type. In my view judges must be entitled, as part of their general case management powers, to put in place, where they feel it to be appropriate, strict directions regulating communications with the court and litigants should understand that failure to comply with such directions will mean that communications that they choose to send, notwithstanding those directions, will be neither responded to nor acted upon.”
“… I can and should adopt here the approach suggested by King LJ, by making orders specifically designed to protect the administrative processes of the Court of Protection generally and to prevent its procedure from being abused. Support for this course is further located in the Court of Appeal's judgment in Attorney-General v Ebert[2002] 2 All ER 789 where Brooke LJ made the following observations as to the scope of this jurisdiction at [35]: “…the court's supervisory role now extends beyond the mere regulation of litigation and of litigants who have submitted themselves to the compulsory jurisdiction of the court. It includes the regulation of the manner in which the court process may in general be utilised. It is of course well established that the High Court may, in appropriate circumstances, grant an injunction to restrain an anticipated interference with the administration of justice, amounting to a contempt (Attorney-General v Times Newspapers Ltd[1974] AC 273 , 293G-294A, 306B). The advent of the Civil Procedure Rules only serves to bolster the principle that in the exercise of its inherent jurisdiction the court has the power to restrain litigants from wasting the time of court staff and disturbing the orderly conduct of court processes in a completely obsessive pursuit of their own litigation, taking it forward by one unmeritorious application after another and insisting that they should be afforded priority over other litigants.”