Osbourne v Parole Board

An application for permission to appeal should be refused where the proposed grounds merely misread the judgment, re-argue matters already decided, or disclose no reasonable prospect of success and no other compelling reason for an appeal.

A judgment concerning oral hearings must be read as a whole. A general statement about when oral hearings may be required should not be attributed to the court if it is inconsistent with the judgment’s express reasoning. A decision concerning mental health issues is not inconsistent with binding authority merely because the claimant characterises it as such.

The claimant applied for permission to appeal against an earlier judgment concerning the Parole Board. The application relied on two principal grounds.

First, the claimant argued that the judgment stated that oral hearings would not be required in every or most cases. Secondly, he argued that the judgment’s approach to mental health was inconsistent with Smith and West v Parole Board, [2005] UKHL 1, and the European Court decision in Waite.

The court considered whether those grounds disclosed a reasonable prospect of success or any other compelling reason for an appeal.

1. The application for permission to appeal was dismissed. Permission was refused because the proposed grounds disclosed no reasonable prospect of success and no other compelling reason for an appeal.

2. The first ground was based on a misreading of the judgment. The judgment did not state that oral hearings would not be required in every or most cases. Its meaning had to be understood by reading the relevant passages together, including paragraphs 6, 31 and 37 of the earlier judgment.

3. The court had expressed reservations about the approach of Cranston J in R(H) v SSJ, 2008] EWHC 2590 (Admin), from which the relevant phrase had been derived. The court stated that the approach was not particularly helpful. The proposed appeal ground based on that interpretation was therefore misconceived.

4. The mental-health ground amounted to an attempt to re-argue the hearing. The court rejected the contention that its judgment was inconsistent with Smith and West v Parole Board, [2005] UKHL 1, or Waite. The judgment was described as consistent with those authorities and guided by them, together with the consideration of those cases by Latham LJ in R (Brooke, O’Connell and another) v Parole Board, [2008] EWCA Civ 29.

5. Permission to appeal was declined.

The judgment records an application for permission to appeal against an earlier judgment, but does not state the citation or court of that decision. The High Court refused permission to appeal.