De-Winter Heald v Brent LBC [2009] EWCA Civ 930

• Question of whether it was contrary to Article 6 for reviews of a council’s decision on housing applications to be contracted out to a private company, hired by the council for the purpose.

• CA said it didn’t breach Article 6 

Brunton-Stanley LJ

• He adopts the Begum reasoning that, provided the reviewer is subject to judicial control then Article 6 is not breached, and that a review performed by a contracted out TP is no less independent than a review carried out by a council officer, as in Begum.

• The test for apparent bias is well established:

Would a fair-minded and informed observer conclude that there was a real possibility, or a real danger, the two being the same, that the tribunal was biased?

• This was not made out, even though TP’s website boasted of carrying out 3,500 reviews with ‘unparalleled success’, which CA naively interpreted to mean successfully completed in a fair manner, rather than rejected in a court proof manner, (which is what a council would want so it cant be JRed and can avoid having to give out housing if it cant afford to do so.). 

RELATED CASES

• Begum v Tower Hamlets London Borough Council