The High Court amended an order adjourning a constitutional challenge to provisions of the Credit Institutions (Stabilisation) Act 2010, clarifying that the case is deferred pending the High Court’s hearing and determination of a solicitor’s motion to come off record.
In a judgment delivered on 27 January 2023, Mr Justice Garrett Simons ruled on an application by plaintiff Piotr Skoczylas to correct the order made after a hearing on 17 January. The court had adjourned the substantive hearing, which was scheduled to run for three days, after the solicitor for the remaining corporate plaintiff said he had applied to withdraw from the case and could not adopt Skoczylas’s legal submissions on the company’s behalf.
The judge said the original order was intended to defer the substantive hearing until the motion had been heard and determined by the High Court. He amended the wording to specify that the deferral did not extend automatically through a possible appeal. He also corrected the order’s description of Skoczylas from the second to the third named plaintiff, and revised its account of the solicitor’s intervention.
The judge rejected other proposed wording that would have described the solicitor’s remarks as “ex parte submissions” or the adjournment as ordered “suo motu”. He said the hearing was inter partes and that no formal adjournment application had been made by the solicitor; the possibility of adjourning had been raised by the court. The judgment said the perfected order was not a substitute for a hearing transcript or a detailed record of the court’s reasoning.
The underlying proceedings were brought in 2013. The first and second named plaintiffs had settled their claims, leaving Skoczylas and Scotchstone Capital Fund Ltd as the remaining plaintiffs. The solicitor’s motion to come off record, filed on 28 October 2022, was listed for hearing in the Chancery List on 15 March 2023. The judge made no finding on whether the solicitor had grounds to withdraw, and did not determine the constitutional challenge.
The amended order was deemed perfected on 30 January 2023 for the purpose of the appeal time limit. The judgment also clarified that parties could apply for a new substantive hearing date after 15 March, but any decision to set a date was for the judge in charge of the Non-Jury List. The related proceedings, High Court 2013 No. 2709 P, were to receive corresponding amendments.