HM Attorney General v Adrian Badita

Under Senior Courts Act 1981, s 42, the High Court may restrict a litigant’s access to civil proceedings where the statutory conditions are established. The court must assess the claimant’s conduct cumulatively. Habitual and persistent vexatious proceedings may be demonstrated by repeated meritless claims, automatic challenges to adverse decisions, disregard of court orders, and abusive or threatening conduct. The court must recognise the resulting interference with ordinary access to justice, but may impose a civil proceedings order where a filter is necessary and the balance of justice requires it. The order may be indefinite where the conduct is extensive, repeated and likely to continue.

The Attorney General applied under s 42(1) of the Senior Courts Act 1981 for a civil proceedings order against Adrian Badita. The application relied on numerous unsuccessful claims brought over approximately eight or nine years against employers, recruitment agencies and other defendants, together with repeated appeals, disregard of civil restraint orders, and abusive and threatening correspondence.

The defendant resisted the application, principally repeating allegations of conspiracy, judicial corruption and procedural invalidity. The Divisional Court considered whether the statutory test was satisfied and, if so, what form and duration of order was appropriate.

1. Application granted. The court made an indefinite civil proceedings order under s 42 of the Senior Courts Act 1981. The order prohibited the defendant from instituting or continuing civil proceedings, or making applications in civil proceedings brought by any person, without permission of the High Court. It also prohibited him from acting as a representative or McKenzie friend. He was ordered to pay the costs on the standard basis.
2. The statutory test requires the court to be satisfied that the person has habitually and persistently and without reasonable ground instituted vexatious civil proceedings or made vexatious applications. The hallmarks of vexatious proceedings include little or no legal basis, disproportionate inconvenience, harassment and expense, and abuse of the court’s process.
3. The assessment is cumulative. Repeated claims based on essentially the same fanciful conspiracy theories, automatic challenges to adverse decisions, disregard of civil restraint orders and abusive or threatening conduct demonstrated both habitual and persistent vexatious conduct and a vexatious mindset.
4. The defendant’s arguments concerning default judgment, disclosure and a possible reference to the CJEU did not undermine the application. A party may apply to strike out a vexatious or abusive claim without first filing a defence. Any possible reference to the CJEU would not affect the jurisdiction of competent domestic courts or tribunals.
5. The court recognised that a civil proceedings order curtails ordinary rights of access to the courts. Nevertheless, the filter was necessary because the defendant had repeatedly abused those rights and was likely to continue. An indefinite order was proportionate to the scale and duration of the conduct.