ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
(MR JUSTICE RICHARDS)
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London, WC2
B E F O R E:
LORD JUSTICE SIMON BROWN
LORD JUSTICE KEENE
LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER
THE QUEEN ON THE APPLICATION OF RICHARDSON
Claimant/Appellant
-v-
NORTH YORKSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL
Defendant/Respondent
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MR R MCCRAKEN QC and MR G JONES (instructed by Messrs Richard Buxton) appeared on behalf of the Appellant
MR T STRAKER QC (instructed by North Yorkshire County Council Legal Department) appeared on behalf of the First Respondent
MR J MAURICI (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor, London SW1H 9JS) appeared on behalf of the Second Respondent
JUDGMENT
JUDGMENT ON COSTS
LORD JUSTICE SIMON BROWN: Appeals are an expensive and hazardous process. There can be no conceivable doubt but that the respondent council must have their costs. Stretching our consciences to the uttermost, we limit the costs in favour of the Secretary of State (who strictly might be thought entitled to the entirety of his costs too of contesting this separate issue) to three quarters of his costs, simply on the basis that he has in the event had some profit from the appeal: the law as to the reach of the code has been clarified, and clarified in the event in his interest.
We could not properly, in our unanimous judgment, make any order more generous towards the appellants. They must pay all but a quarter of the Secretary of State's costs.
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