Raymond v Honey

A convicted prisoner retains every civil right which imprisonment has not removed expressly or by necessary implication. The right of unimpeded access to a court is fundamental. A general statutory power to regulate prison discipline, management and control does not authorise its restriction.

Subordinate prison rules must be construed within their enabling Act. They cannot justify stopping a prisoner's application to a court. Conduct calculated to obstruct the due course of justice or the lawful process of the courts constitutes contempt. Interference with correspondence between a prisoner and solicitor may therefore amount to contempt, but the applicant must prove that the interference was calculated to obstruct justice.

The governor of Albany Prison stopped a prisoner's application to the High Court for leave to seek the governor's committal for contempt. The application contained an allegation against a prison officer which had not first been investigated through the prison's internal procedure. The Divisional Court held the governor in contempt for stopping the application.

The governor appealed. The prisoner cross-appealed against the Divisional Court's separate conclusion that the governor was not in contempt when he stopped an earlier letter to the prisoner's solicitor. The central questions were whether the prison legislation authorised either interference and whether each act was calculated to obstruct the due course of justice.

1. Disposition. The House unanimously dismissed both the governor's appeal and the prisoner's cross-appeal. The Divisional Court's order was affirmed. There was no general order for costs in the House, subject to taxation of the original respondent's legally aided costs.
2. Access to the courts. Per Lord Wilberforce, with whose speech Lord Elwyn-Jones and Lord Russell of Killowen agreed, conduct calculated to obstruct the due course of justice or the lawful process of the courts is contempt. A convicted prisoner retains every civil right not removed expressly or by necessary implication. Section 47 of the Prison Act 1952, being concerned with prison management and regulation, did not authorise rules which denied or interfered with a prisoner's fundamental right of unimpeded access to a court.
3. Subordinate rules and standing orders. Per Lord Wilberforce, the Prison Rules 1964 had to be interpreted consistently with the limited statutory power. Neither Rule 34(8) nor Rule 37A(4), alone or with the standing orders requiring prior ventilation of allegations against prison officers, was sufficiently clear to justify stopping the application. Standing orders could confer no greater power than the Rules. The governor's action temporarily denied access to the court and therefore constituted contempt.
4. Lord Bridge's concurring analysis. Lord Bridge, whose reasoning Lord Lowry also accepted, considered that a citizen's right of unimpeded access to the courts could be removed only by express enactment. Although Rule 33(2), read with Rules 34(8) and 37, purported to include communications with courts, section 47 did not authorise that restriction. The Rules were therefore ultra vires to the extent that they fettered a prisoner's access to the courts, particularly the institution of proceedings in person.
5. Letter to the solicitor. Per Lord Wilberforce, it was unnecessary to determine whether the Rules authorised the stopping of the earlier letter. The prisoner bore the burden of proving contempt, and the evidence did not establish that he had been prevented from communicating the relevant instructions to his solicitor. Lord Bridge considered that Rule 37A(1) protected the whole letter once it proved to relate to the pending proceedings, so it should not have been stopped under Rule 33(3). He nevertheless agreed that the evidence failed to show an effective impediment to the conduct of the defence. The cross-appeal consequently failed.

1. House of Lords: The governor's appeal and the prisoner's cross-appeal were dismissed unanimously. The Divisional Court's order was affirmed.
2. Divisional Court of the Queen's Bench Division: On 7 April 1981, it held the governor in contempt for stopping the prisoner's application to the High Court, but found no contempt in the stopping of the earlier letter to the prisoner's solicitor.