Nicholas Dobson reports on the world of clerks & tribunals
An in-house lawyer may often be asked to “clerk” a quasi-judicial body such as a local authority licensing committee. As part of this the lawyer may well help in drafting the findings and decision once these have been made. Not those of the lawyer of course, but of the determining body. But could the public body nevertheless be acting unfairly and unlawfully under these circumstances?
Some light may have been cast into this “encircling gloom” by the decision of the Court of Appeal in Virdi v Law Society of England and Wales and the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal [2010] EWCA Civ 100, judgment in which was given 16 February 2010. For on the facts and circumstances before it the court found a lawful decision with no bias in a fair process. The court was also able to offer some further useful insights into that mysterious but ubiquitous figure: the “fair-minded and informed observer” (FIO).
In the case the appellant, Mr Virdi, was challenging the decision of the
