P v A Local Authority

Damages for breach of Convention rights are subject to the statutory charge only where they are recovered in proceedings in connection with which civil legal services were provided. A separate, unfunded Human Rights Act claim is not brought within funded wardship proceedings merely because the claimant is a ward or because an earlier wardship order concerned related personal information. Where a child’s human rights claim is settled before issue, the court may use the Part 8 procedure to approve the settlement. The statutory-charge waiver conditions under the Civil Legal Aid (Statutory Charge) Regulations 2013 must be satisfied when funding is determined.

P, a 17-year-old ward of court, obtained declaratory relief concerning disclosure of information about him to his adoptive parents. The local authority later disclosed his personal information to third parties. It admitted that the disclosure breached his Article 8 rights and agreed damages of £4,750.

The Legal Aid Agency contended that the damages were subject to the statutory charge because legal services had been provided in the wardship proceedings. The central issues were whether the human rights claim was connected with those proceedings, whether the charge could be waived, and whether the settlement could instead be approved through separate Part 8 proceedings.

1. Outcome. The court approved the agreed award of £4,750 for the admitted breach of P’s Article 8 rights. The statutory charge did not apply.
2. Under section 25 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, the charge attaches to property recovered in proceedings in connection with which civil legal services were provided. The phrase may have a wide meaning, but there must still be a legal or factual connection between the funded proceedings and the recovery.
3. The funded wardship proceedings concerned disclosure of information to P’s adoptive parents. The later breach concerned disclosure by a local-authority employee to third parties. It was not a breach of the earlier declaratory order or of an injunction. The human rights claim was therefore wholly unconnected with the funded wardship proceedings.
4. The court accepted the general approach in R(Faulkner) v Director of Legal Aid Casework [2016] EWHC 717 that Convention damages are not a special class of damages immune from the statutory charge. That decision was nevertheless distinguishable on its facts, including the present claimant’s status as a young ward of court.
5. The waiver conditions in regulation 9 of the Civil Legal Aid (Statutory Charge) Regulations 2013 had to be satisfied when the funding determination was made. Since they were not satisfied then, the Lord Chancellor had no power to waive the charge retrospectively.
6. A settled human rights claim involving a child may be issued as a freestanding Part 8 claim under the Civil Procedure Rules 2010, with court approval under rule 21.10. The court could approve the agreed damages and costs on the papers.

First-instance decision. The judgment refers to an earlier wardship decision by the same judge, [2016] EWHC 2600 (Fam), but the present decision concerns the subsequent Human Rights Act claim and statutory-charge issue.