The High Court refused John Gaynor leave to bring a judicial review challenge over the Courts Service’s refusal to accept his attempt to apply to dismiss a bankruptcy summons. The court held that he had filed Form 6 without the required Form 7, and that a later ruling allowed him to raise the same points as a defence to the summons.
In an ex tempore judgment delivered on 30 November 2015, Mr Justice Richard Humphreys considered only whether leave should be granted on the grounds in Mr Gaynor’s statement of grounds. He said he did not need to examine in detail 22 earlier High Court and Court of Appeal orders.
The bankruptcy summons was issued on 15 June 2015 and personally served on Mr Gaynor on 18 June. He had 14 days to apply to set it aside. Representing himself, he tried to lodge Form 6 on 2 July, the final day of that period. The judgment says the applicable court rule required both Form 6 and Form 7. The Central Office was therefore correct to refuse Form 6 alone.
The court also considered information given to Mr Gaynor about the filing problem. The Courts Service and the notice parties accepted that the only document informing him of the difficulty was a letter from Thomas Kinirons dated 15 October 2015. The letter said a Form 7 notice was required and referred to Mr Gaynor having brought an affidavit when he attended. Justice Humphreys said it implied both forms were necessary, but did not state this in terms that a lay litigant could not misunderstand. Nor did it advise him that he could ask the court to extend the 14-day limit.
However, Costello J had subsequently ruled in the bankruptcy proceedings that any point Mr Gaynor could have raised in an application to set aside the summons could instead be raised as a defence to it. The judgment said that ruling was accepted by the Courts Service and, more specifically, the notice parties. In those circumstances, Justice Humphreys found no great injustice arose from the rejection of the application.
The court refused leave on two grounds: the Central Office had correctly rejected Form 6 alone, and the later ruling meant the rejection caused no injustice. It did not consider possible alternative remedies, including an adjournment to allow an application to extend the time limit.