Costs

Civil proceedings - hearing abandoned by reason of apparent bias and re-hearing ordered - no breach of right to fair trial and Lord Chancellor not liable for costs In re Medicaments and Related Classes of Goods (No 4): CA (Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers MR, Lords Justice Brooke and Robert Walker): 26 July 2001At the hearing of proceedings in the Restrictive Practices Court to which two trade associations were parties, the associations applied for the members of the court to recuse themselves by reason of the apparent bias of one of them.The court refused the application but the Court of Appeal allowed the associations' appeal: In re Medicaments (No 2) [2001] Gazette, 15 February, 40; [2001] 1 WLR 700.Consequent upon that decision the proceedings recommenced before a reconstituted Restrictive Practices Court.

The associations applied to the Court of Appeal that their costs of the aborted hearing be paid by the Lord Chancellor on the ground that their right to a fair trial before an impartial tribunal under article 6(1) of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights, as scheduled to the Human Rights Act 1998, had been violated; and that the Lord Chancellor, as the emanation of the state responsible for providing an impartial tribunal, was liable to compensate them for that violation.

Catharine Otton-Goulder QC, Margaret Gray and Andrew Henshaw (instructed by CMS Cameron, McKenna) for the associations.

Philip Sales and Jason Coppel (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) for the Lord Chancellor.

The Director-General of Fair Trading did not appear and was not represented.Held, refusing the application, that the Court of Appeal had remedied the situation by providing a rehearing before an impartial tribunal; and that in those circumstances no violation of article 6(1) had occurred and it followed that the associations were not entitled to recover their costs of the aborted hearing against the Lord Chancellor.