“This Convention shall cease to applyto any person falling under the terms of section A if: … (5) He can no longer, because the circumstances in connection with which he has been recognised as a refugee have ceased to exist, continue to refuse to avail himself of the protection of the country of his nationality ...” (5) He can no longer, because the circumstances in connection with which he has been recognised as a refugee have ceased to exist, continue to refuse to avail himself of the protection of the country of his nationality ...”
“65. … All that a claimant has to prove in order to establish false imprisonment is that he was directly and intentionally imprisoned by the defendant, whereupon the burden shifts to the defendant to show that there was lawful justification for doing so. As Lord Bridge of Harwich said in R v Deputy Governor of Parkhurst Prison, Ex p Hague[1992] 1 AC 58 , 162C-D: ‘The tort of false imprisonment has two ingredients: the fact of imprisonment and the absence of lawful authority to justify it.’ 66. The causation test shifts the focus of the tort on to the question of how the defendant would have acted on the hypothesis of a lawful self-direction, rather than on the claimant’s right not in fact to be unlawfully detained. There is no warrant for this. A purported lawful authority to detain may be impugned either because the defendant acted in excess of jurisdiction (in the narrow sense of jurisdiction) or because such jurisdiction was wrongly exercised. Anisminic Ltd v Foreign Compensation Commission[1969] 2 AC 147 established that both species of error render an executive act ultra vires, unlawful and a nullity. In the present context, there is in principle no difference between (i) a detention which is unlawful because there was no statutory power to detain and (ii) a detention which is unlawful because the decision to detain, although authorised by statute, was made in breach of a rule of public law. For example, if the decision to detain is unreasonable in the Wednesbury sense, it is unlawful and a nullity. The importance of Anisminic is that it established that there was a single category of errors of law, all of which rendered a decision ultra vires: see Boddington v British Transport Police[1999] 2 AC 143 , 158D-E.”
“To summarise, therefore, in cases such as these, all that the claimant has to do is to prove that he was detained. The Secretary of State must prove that the detention was justified in law. She cannot do this by showing that, although the decision to detain was tainted by public law error … a decision to detain free from error could and would have been made.”
“57. Applying the approach in Lord Dyson JSC’s judgment in Lumba … to the present case, both the deeming decision under section 3(5)(a) and the decision to make a deportation order under section 5(1), although authorised by statute, were made ‘in breach of a rule of public law’. The sole basis for both decisions was the unlawful 2004 Order. This error was sufficient to render those decisions unlawful, but did it bear upon, and was it relevant to, the decision to detain under paragraph 2(2) of Schedule 3? 58. I have not found this an easy question to answer. As a matter of first impression, the answer to the question is obvious: the unlawful decisions under sections 3(5)(a) and 5(1) did bear upon and were relevant to the decision to detain: without the prior decisions there could have been no decision to detain. But this approach does not pay sufficient regard to the statutory scheme as a whole. Making a deportation order is a two-stage process. First the Secretary of State must serve notice of the decision to make a deportation order. The notice explains that there is a right of appeal under section 82(1) against the decision, and sets out of (sic) the grounds of appeal under section 84(1). Those grounds are not limited to the ground that removal in consequence of the decision would be unlawful under the Refugee Convention or the ECHR, they enable the person served with the notice to challenge the lawfulness of the notice on the basis of any breach of a rule of public law: ‘that the decision is otherwise not in accordance with the law’ … If there is an appeal the Secretary of State may not proceed to the second stage of the process - the making of the deportation order - until the appeal has been finally determined …”
“… It would frustrate the operation of the statutory scheme if the Secretary of State was not able to rely upon the tribunal’s decision, dismissing an appeal, once time for applying for permission to appeal against the decision had expired, as a lawful basis for making a deportation order.”
“Where notice has been given to a person in accordance with regulations under section 18 of this Act of a decision to make a deportation order against him … he may be detained under the authority of the Secretary of State pending the making of the deportation order.”
“… we are at liberty, unconstrained by binding authority, to interpret Schedule 2 to the 1971 Act without any preconceived notions. If we do so, there is nothing there to suggest that Parliament intended to confer immunity from suit on immigration officers who asked themselves the wrong questions, so that their decision to deprive an immigrant of his liberty was a nullity and consequently unlawful.”
“60. … There will, however, be some cases where appeals are allowed by the tribunal on the basis that there was a breach of a rule of public law in the process of making the decision to make the order, where the nature of the breach will have been such as to render the detention unlawful … It must, however, be acknowledged that it is difficult to identify any principled basis for distinguishing between those public law errors which will render the decision to detain unlawful and those which will not. Errors of law are many and various and, as Lord Dyson said in para 66 of Lumba: ‘The importance of Anisminic is that it established that there was a single category of errors of law, all of which rendered a decision ultra vires …’ 61. The statutory scheme does not provide any mechanism for challenging the lawfulness of the kind of decision that was in issue in Lumba: an (unlawful) decision to detain where there had been a (lawful) decision to make a deportation order/the making of a (lawful) deportation order. The lawfulness of such a decision can be challenged only by way of judicial review. In sharp contrast, Parliament has established a comprehensive statutory scheme for determining the lawfulness of a decision by the Secretary of State to make a deportation order. The Secretary of State may not make the order until an appeal against the decision to make it has been ‘finally determined’…”
“It is well established that a statutory body cannot by contract fetter its own freedom to perform its statutory duties or exercise its statutory powers and by parity of reasoning it has been held that no such fetter can arise from an estoppel by representation … But the rationale which underlies the doctrine of res judicata is so different from that which underlies the doctrine of estoppel by representation that I do not think these authorities have any relevance for present purposes. The doctrine of res judicata rests on the twin principles which cannot be better expressed than in terms of the two Latin maxims ‘interest reipublicae ut sit finis litium’ and ‘nemo debet bis vexari pro una et eadem causa’. These principles are of such fundamental importance that they cannot be confined in their application to litigation in the private law field. They certainly have their place in criminal law. In principle they must apply equally to adjudications in the field of public law. In relation to adjudications subject to a comprehensive self-contained statutory code, the presumption, in my opinion, must be that where the statute has created a specific jurisdiction for the determination of any issue which establishes the existence of a legal right, the principle of res judicata applies to give finality to that determination unless an intention to exclude that principle can properly be inferred as a matter of construction of the relevant statutory provisions.”
“The second species, which I will call ‘issue estoppel’, is an extension of the same rule of public policy. There are many causes of action which can only be established by proving that two or more different conditions are fulfilled. Such causes of action involve as many separate issues between the parties as there are conditions to be fulfilled by the plaintiff in order to establish his cause of action; and there may be cases where the fulfilment of an identical condition is a requirement common to two or more different causes of action. If in litigation upon one such cause of action any of such separate issues as to whether a particular condition has been fulfilled is determined by a court of competent jurisdiction, either upon evidence or upon admission by a party to the litigation, neither party can, in subsequent litigation between one another upon any cause of action which depends upon the fulfilment of the identical condition, assert that the condition was fulfilled if the court has in the first litigation determined that it was not, or deny that it was fulfilled if the court in the first litigation determined that it was.”
“In neither field may a jurisdictional challenge to the decision of an inferior court or tribunal act as proxy for an appeal. This is fundamental to the functioning of the legal system.” (para 29) He added: “33. These interlocking principles of precedent, appeal and finality cannot coexist with a separate doctrine, founded on a catholic meaning of jurisdiction, which undercuts them. In agreement with the Employment Appeal Tribunal, I consider that the effect of [counsel’s] argument is to erect such a doctrine. It is, in effect, an argument that an error of law on the part of a tribunal, although standing uncorrected by any superior court, invalidates all its subsequent proceedings not simply by exposing them to a successful appeal but by allowing them and their outcome to be disregarded or collaterally challenged. Such a proposition is serious enough when applied to an excess of a tribunal’s constitutive jurisdiction, but there it is generally irresistible because the courts cannot ordinarily equip a nullity with the force of law. To apply it to an excess of a tribunal’s adjudicative jurisdiction, by contrast, would be to supplant the entire edifice of finality and appeal by (to use a deliberate oxymoron) a retroactive system of precedent.”
“30. Although it is well established that the parties cannot by agreement or conduct confer upon a tribunal a jurisdiction which it does not otherwise have, the question in this case is whether an actual decision by a tribunal that it has jurisdiction can estop the parties per rem judicatam from asserting the contrary. Neither Buxton LJ nor Rimer J cited any authority which decides that it cannot. The law on this point is not at all trite. Although estoppel in pais and estoppel per rem judicatam share the word estoppel, they share very little else. The former is based upon a policy of giving a limited effect to non-contractual representations and promises while the latter is based upon the altogether different policy of avoiding relitigation of the same issues. It is easy to see why parties should not be able to agree to confer upon a tribunal a jurisdiction which Parliament has not given it. And if they cannot do this by contract, it would be illogical if they could do it by non-contractual representations or promises. But when the tribunal has decided that it does have jurisdiction, the question of whether this decision is binding at a later stage of the same litigation, or in subsequent litigation, involves, as Sedley LJ explained in his dissenting judgment, quite different issues about fairness and economy in the administration of justice. 31. Issue estoppel arises when a court of competent jurisdiction has determined some question of fact or law, either in the course of the same litigation (for example, as a preliminary point) or in other litigation which raises the same point between the same parties: see Thoday v Thoday[1964] P 181 , 198. The question is therefore whether the appeal tribunal was a court of competent jurisdiction to determine whether the Labour Party was a qualifying body within the meaning of section 12.”
“34. … It is true that the severity of this rule is tempered by a discretion to allow the issue to be reopened in subsequent proceedings when there are special circumstances in which it would cause injustice not to do so: see Arnold v National Westminster Bank plc[1991] 2 AC 93 . As Lord Keith of Kinkel said, at p 109, the purpose of the estoppel is to work justice between the parties …”
“In my opinion your Lordships should affirm it to be the law that there may be an exception to issue estoppel in the special circumstance that there has become available to a party further material relevant to the correct determination of a point involved in the earlier proceedings, whether or not that point was specifically raised and decided, being material which could not by reasonable diligence have been adduced in those proceedings. One of the purposes of estoppel being to work justice between the parties, it is open to courts to recognise that in special circumstances inflexible application of it may have the opposite result …”
“If a judge has made a mistake, perhaps a very egregious mistake, as is said of Walton J’s judgment here, and a later judgment of a higher court overrules his decision in another case, do considerations of justice require that the party who suffered from the mistake should be shut out, when the same issue arises in later proceedings with a different subject matter, from reopening that issue?”
“I consider that anyone not possessed of a strictly legalistic turn of mind would think it most unjust that a tenant should be faced with a succession of rent reviews over a period of over 20 years all proceeding upon a construction of his lease which is highly unfavourable to him and is generally regarded as erroneous …”
“22. Arnold … is accordingly authority for the following propositions. (1) Cause of action estoppel is absolute in relation to all points which had to be and were decided in order to establish the existence or non-existence of a cause of action. (2) Cause of action estoppel also bars the raising in subsequent proceedings of points essential to the existence or non-existence of a cause of action which were not decided because they were not raised in the earlier proceedings, if they could with reasonable diligence and should in all the circumstances have been raised. (3) Except in special circumstances where this would cause injustice, issue estoppel bars the raising in subsequent proceedings of points which (i) were not raised in the earlier proceedings or (ii) were raised but unsuccessfully. If the relevant point was not raised, the bar will usually be absolute if it could with reasonable diligence and should in all the circumstances have been raised.” (1) Cause of action estoppel is absolute in relation to all points which had to be and were decided in order to establish the existence or non-existence of a cause of action. (2) Cause of action estoppel also bars the raising in subsequent proceedings of points essential to the existence or non-existence of a cause of action which were not decided because they were not raised in the earlier proceedings, if they could with reasonable diligence and should in all the circumstances have been raised. (3) Except in special circumstances where this would cause injustice, issue estoppel bars the raising in subsequent proceedings of points which (i) were not raised in the earlier proceedings or (ii) were raised but unsuccessfully. If the relevant point was not raised, the bar will usually be absolute if it could with reasonable diligence and should in all the circumstances have been raised.”