HM Attorney General Ebert v Gedaljhu Ebert

On an application for permission to appeal against a civil proceedings order declaring a person vexatious, the court does not reopen the merits of earlier judgments. The issue is whether the applicant has shown a real prospect that the order was wrong. A single Lord Justice may determine an oral permission application. In assessing vexatiousness, the court may consider the cumulative scale and character of proceedings, including committal applications against solicitors, their oppressive effect on opponents, and the waste of judicial resources. An understandable grievance or perceived injustice does not prevent an order where subsequent litigation has become vexatious.

The Attorney General obtained a civil proceedings order from the Divisional Court, comprising Laws LJ and Silber J, on 7 July 2000. The order declared Mr Ebert to be a vexatious litigant. Mr Ebert applied to a single Lord Justice for permission to appeal. He challenged the judge’s jurisdiction, sought disclosure of the bench memorandum, and argued that the Attorney General’s application required permission, that his bankruptcy-related applications could not support a vexatious-litigant order, and that the underlying merits had not been sufficiently examined. The central issues were whether the application could be determined by one Lord Justice and whether any proposed ground gave a real prospect of success.

Application for permission to appeal dismissed.

1. Jurisdiction. Applications for permission to appeal may be dealt with orally or in writing. Where dealt with orally, a single Lord Justice has jurisdiction to decide whether permission should be granted or refused.
2. Bench memorandum. A memorandum prepared by judicial assistants to assist the court is not automatically disclosable. Any material in it which the applicant ought to know must be disclosed. Here, the memorandum merely summarised the position already set out in the Divisional Court’s judgment, so no further disclosure was required.
3. Permission threshold. The applicant had to identify a ground giving a real prospect of success. The submissions concerning the statutory permission point, the nature of the applications brought, and the underlying merits disclosed no possible ground on which the order could be shown to be wrong.
4. Vexatious-litigant assessment. The court deciding whether a civil proceedings order is justified does not re-examine the underlying merits of judgments already pronounced. The question is whether the litigant has shown himself to be vexatious.
5. Relevant circumstances. The Divisional Court was entitled to consider the cumulative pattern of proceedings, estimated at well over one hundred applications, including applications to commit two solicitors for contempt. The oppression caused to opponents and the extravagant waste of scarce judicial resources were relevant public-interest considerations.
6. An understandable sense of grievance, including a perceived injustice concerning a co-guarantor, did not provide a real prospect of success once the resulting litigation had become vexatious. A copy of the transcript was to be provided to Mr Ebert at public expense.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division) — On 11 May 2001, Lord Justice Longmore refused permission to appeal and dismissed the application: [2001] EWCA Civ 707.
• High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division, Divisional Court — On 7 July 2000, Laws LJ and Silber J made a civil proceedings order declaring Mr Ebert to be a vexatious litigant.