Human rights

Right to fair trial - inability to enforce maintenance assessment - breach of rights cured by right to seek judicial review

R (Kehoe) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions: QBD Admin (Mr Justice Wall): 16 May 2003

The applicant, whose unsuccessful attempts to secure child maintenance from her former husband spanned a period of ten years from 1993 to 2003, sought declarations under section 4(2) of the Human Rights Act 1998 that the provisions, and in particular section 8(3), of the Child Support Act 1991, were incompatible with her rights under article 6 of the European Convention in denying a parent with care of the children access to any court in connection with disputes concerning payments by the absent parent in respect of those children and further, under section 7 of the Human Rights Act 1998, that the delay on the part of the Child Support Agency in taking steps to enforce the child maintenance assessments obtained entitled her to damages for breach of those rights.

Richard Drabble QC and Ramby de Mello (instructed by Hodge Jones & Allen) for the claimant; Robert Jay QC and David Forsdick (instructed by Solicitor, Department of Work and Pensions) for the secretary of state.

Held, refusing to grant the applications, that the right to enforce a maintenance assessment made by the agency was an integral part of the right to apply for and obtain that assessment and plainly part of a claimant's article 6 rights; and that while an inability personally to enforce arrears of maintenance arising under such assessment breached those rights, the combination of the right to apply for judicial review together with the court's powers to compensate the claimant for the loss of child support because of unreasonableness or delay on the part of the agency was sufficient to cure such breach.