The High Court dismissed an application by Fitzwilton Limited, Goulding Limited and Rennicks Sign Manufacturing for discovery of documents relating to the Tribunal of Inquiry’s decision to hold a public hearing into a £30,000 payment associated with the Fitzwilton Group.
The ruling, delivered by Miss Justice Laffoy on 16 February 2006, concerned discovery in the applicants’ substantive judicial review proceedings. It did not decide that judicial review. The applicants had been granted leave to challenge whether the Tribunal complied with paragraph J(2) of its amended terms of reference when deciding that the payment would proceed to a public hearing.
The applicants sought documents considered or prepared between 3 December 2004 and 1 May 2005, records of the purported decision to proceed to a public hearing, and an unredacted copy of the Tribunal’s J(2) list. The list, dated 28 April 2005, named 47 matters, including the Fitzwilton payment module. The applicants had received a version with the other 46 matters redacted.
The Tribunal opposed discovery. In an affidavit, its solicitor said members had considered outstanding matters between November 2004 and April 2005 and decided during that period that the Fitzwilton payment should proceed to a public hearing. He said the J(2) list was the written record of those decisions. He also explained that a review mentioned in a July 2005 letter concerned preparing the proposed hearing, rather than deciding whether it should go ahead. Those statements were evidence advanced by the respondents, not findings made in the discovery ruling.
Justice Laffoy held that discovery of the records concerning the decision was not necessary to dispose of the issues fairly. She found no clear factual dispute in the affidavits requiring resolution, and no indication that the respondents had given false information or improperly withheld information. There was also no evidence that material which should have been before the Tribunal was missing, or that material which should not have been considered was before it.
The court also refused the request for the unredacted list, finding the applicants had not established that the unrelated matters were relevant to their case. The judge said the conclusion was not based on the list’s confidential nature; if the unredacted list had been relevant, arrangements could have protected confidentiality.
The court did not rule on the respondents’ separate argument under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921. It dismissed the discovery application. The substantive judicial review remained unresolved by this judgment.