R v Challenor

An appeal under regulation 29 of the Criminal Legal Aid (Remuneration) Regulations 2013 lies only in respect of the categories of claim for which regulation 28 provides a redetermination and written-reasons procedure. Those categories concern specified advocates’ fees and litigators’ fees or offence classification. They do not include litigators’ disbursements, including travel expenses. A purported redetermination and provision of written reasons cannot confer jurisdiction where the Regulations provide no right to that process. The appeal must therefore be dismissed.

Gray & Co Solicitors represented the defendant in Crown Court proceedings under a legal aid Representation Order. The defendant was acquitted. The solicitors claimed payment for travel by the conducting solicitor from his home to Liverpool Crown Court. The issue was whether that claim for a litigator’s disbursement could be appealed to a Costs Judge under regulation 29 of the Criminal Legal Aid (Remuneration) Regulations 2013.

The central question was whether regulations 28 and 29 provided jurisdiction to entertain an appeal concerning litigators’ expenses.

1. Appeal dismissed. The appeal concerned a claim for a litigator’s travel expenses, treated under the Criminal Legal Aid (Remuneration) Regulations 2013 as a disbursement.
2. Advocates’ fees are calculated under Schedule 1 and litigators’ fees under Schedule 2. Litigators’ disbursements are governed separately by regulations 5(2) and 14 to 17. Regulation 17 permits recovery of disbursements claimed under regulation 5(2) only to the extent that they appear to the Determining Officer to have been reasonably incurred.
3. Regulation 28 permits an advocate or litigator to seek redetermination, review or reclassification only for the specified categories of claim identified in that regulation. For litigators, those categories are the fee payable under Schedule 2 and the offence classification under paragraph 3(3) of Schedule 2. Litigators’ disbursements are not included.
4. Under regulation 29(1), an appeal to a Costs Judge is available only where the appropriate officer has given written reasons under regulation 28(8). The statutory appeal jurisdiction therefore extends only to matters falling within regulation 28.
5. The jurisdiction of both the Determining Officer and the Costs Judge is statutory. The parties’ completion of a redetermination and written-reasons process cannot create jurisdiction which the Regulations do not confer. Following the reasoning in R v Humfrey, the purported process was unavailable for this claim and the appeal could not be entertained.

• Senior Courts Costs Office: The appeal under regulation 29 of the Criminal Legal Aid (Remuneration) Regulations 2013 was dismissed. No earlier decision citation is stated.