Runa Begum v Tower Hamlets London Borough Council

A homelessness review under Part VII of the Housing Act 1996 concerns civil rights for Article 6(1) purposes. An internal council officer is not an independent and impartial tribunal merely because the officer is senior and uninvolved in the original decision. Article 6 does not invariably require an independent court to rehear the merits or substitute its own factual findings. “Full jurisdiction” means jurisdiction appropriate to the nature of the decision. The statutory scheme must be assessed as a whole. Where it predominantly requires expert judgment, discretion and policy balancing, a county court’s judicial-review jurisdiction on an appeal under section 204 may suffice. The homelessness scheme satisfied Article 6 when its review safeguards were combined with rigorous county-court scrutiny.

The local authority accepted that the respondent was owed the full housing duty under the Housing Act 1996. She refused an offered flat, and an authority officer conducting a review under section 202 decided that the accommodation was suitable and that refusal was unreasonable.

The Bow County Court allowed her section 204 appeal on a preliminary issue. Following Adan v London Borough of Newham [2001] EWCA Civ 1916, it held that disputed facts required an independent tribunal or consideration of contracting out. The authority appealed. The central issues were whether the review determined civil rights, whether the reviewing officer was independent and impartial, and whether the county court’s appeal on a point of law supplied the required “full jurisdiction”.

Lord Justice Laws gave the leading judgment. Lord Justice Dyson and Lord Woolf CJ agreed.

1. Civil rights. A section 202 determination under Part VII of the Housing Act 1996 engaged Article 6(1). The concept of civil rights was autonomous and was not confined to rights carrying a private-law action for damages. The review could lead to the grant or withholding of a tenancy and concerned the urgent provision of living accommodation.
2. Internal review. Applying the principles stated in Findlay (1997) 24 EHRR 221, the reviewing officer lacked sufficient objective guarantees of independence and impartiality. The seniority and non-involvement requirements did not cure the appearance problem, and the private nature of the review was also significant.
3. Full jurisdiction. The expression did not require full decision-making power or a merits rehearing in every case. It required jurisdiction to deal with the case as its nature required, assessed by reference to the statutory scheme as a whole. The court considered the approaches in Albert and Le Compte v Belgium (1983) 5 EHRR 533, Alconbury [2001] 2 WLR 1389, Zumtobel v Austria (1993) 17 EHRR 116 and Bryan v UK (1995) 21 EHRR 342.
4. Where a scheme generally or systematically requires findings of primary fact, greater safeguards such as independent fact-finding may be needed. Where judgment, discretion and policy predominately govern, an expert first-instance process combined with judicial review may suffice. Part VII fell within the latter category. Its review procedures supplied significant safeguards, factual disputes were not systematic, and section 204 gave the county court power to scrutinise rigorously whether the decision was properly available on the evidence.
5. The majority conclusion in Adan v London Borough of Newham [2001] EWCA Civ 1916 that section 204 did not provide full jurisdiction was obiter and was not followed. The appeal was allowed. An agreed minute of order was submitted, and leave to appeal was refused.

1. Court of Appeal: Runa Begum v Tower Hamlets London Borough Council [2002] EWCA Civ 239; appeal allowed.
2. Bow County Court: allowed the respondent’s appeal under section 204 of the Housing Act 1996, holding that the internal review procedure was incompatible with Article 6 because an independent tribunal had not been used or considered.