My Lords, Amendments 72 and 74 are about First-tier and Upper Tribunals being given the ability to order a party to pay a charge in respect of wasted or unnecessary tribunal costs when
“a relevant participant has acted improperly, unreasonably or negligently, and … as a result, the Tribunal’s resources have been wasted”.
Why does such a charge not apply in civil or criminal cases? Is this yet another example of trying to deter asylum seekers from accessing justice and/or to deter lawyers from representing them, as the noble Baroness suggested? I can understand an order requiring one side to pay the other side’s costs, but not the court’s costs. If the Home Office has acted “improperly, unreasonably or negligently”, can the Minister confirm that it will be charged for the tribunal’s time, or is it just the applicants?
This change seems to set a dangerous precedent for the UK judicial system. If the Government were to maintain that they have no plans to extend this principle to other courts and tribunals, they must accept that this is a deliberate attempt to deter asylum seekers from seeking justice and/or to deter lawyers from representing them.
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I understand from the Minister’s response in Committee that the Government believe that tribunals are not using existing powers enough to order costs against applicants, so they have included these clauses to compel tribunals to consider imposing costs orders, and potentially, these new court costs orders.
This looks like another attempt to interfere with the independence of the judiciary, as previous clauses have sought to do, by unduly influencing tribunals as to the weight they should place on certain types of evidence and the assumptions they are to make about the character of the applicant. They are now trying to urge the judiciary to impose costs orders.
We support these amendments. Clauses 76 and 77 should not stand part of the Bill.