Source: http://www.bila.biz/news/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 02:32:54+00:00

Document:
When we hear about Brexit, one of the most heard (and abused) expressions is: “in the old days we knew where we were, nowadays we are where we are”. Perhaps it may be useful to examine how we got where we are.
During the 2015 general election campaign, David Cameron, then leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister, included in his manifesto commitment that he and the Conservative Party would introduce legislation for a referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union. Cameron and the Conservative Party won the general election and Cameron was appointed for the second consecutive term in sequence as Prime Minister.
The planned referendum was included in the Queen's Speech on 27 May 2015. The European Union Referendum Bill 2015, which authorised it, went before the House of Commons just three weeks after the election. The Scottish National Party voted against it. In contrast to the Labour Party's position prior to the 2015 general election under Miliband, acting Labour leader Harriet Harman committed her party to support a EU referendum by 2017.
To enable the referendum to finally take place, the European Union Referendum Act 2015 was voted and passed by Parliament in Westminster and received Royal Assent on 17 December 2015.
The referendum was held on Thursday 23 June 2016. Leave won by 52% to 48%. The referendum turnout was 71.8%, with more than 30 million people voting.
England voted strongly for Brexit as did Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland both backed remaining in the EU. Scotland backed Remain by 62% to 38%, while 55.8% in Northern Ireland voted Remain and 44.2% Leave.
Shortly after the referendum, David Cameron (a Remain campaigner) resigned from his office and Theresa May was appointed as Prime Minister in his place.
From a strictly legal point of view, the referendum did not repeal or abolish any existing legislation. It has only firmly advisory value under the EU Referendum Act 2015. Therefore, although politically the Government is taking into account the results of the referendum, the legal position grants the Government the freedom to ignore them.
Theresa May in relation to the EU referendum was also part of the “Remain” camp. The political agenda of Theresa May shortly after her appointment became: “Brexit means Brexit”.
Theresa May has set up a new government department, to be headed by David Davis, a Leave campaigner, to take responsibility for Brexit. Liam Fox, who also campaigned to leave the EU, has been given the job of international trade secretary and Boris Johnson, who led the Leave campaign, is foreign secretary.
The “Three Brexiteers” have been empowered to conduct negotiations with the EU and seek out new international agreements, with Theresa May having the final say. It is now clear that the government had not carried out any emergency planning for Brexit ahead of the referendum to assist in the negotiations of the withdrawal from the EU and to assess the best possible outcome that Britain could negotiate.
The process of severance from the EU will only start when a formal notice is given by the Prime Minister to the European Council in accordance with art. 50 of the Treaty on the Functioning of European Union (TFEU also known as the Lisbon Treaty) (“Notice”).
Once the Notice is given, the clock will start ticking and a maximum period of two years (“Notice Period”) will run during which the UK will remain a Member State and will have to negotiate the terms of a withdrawal agreement with the European Union.
Once the Notice is given it cannot be withdrawn (there is no provision to this effect in art. 50 TFEU). Should the United Kingdom wish to change its mind, it needs to make a fresh application (pursuant to art. 49 TFEU) as any other applicant State wishing to join the EU.
(c) after the expiry of the Notice Period, if there is consent of the United Kingdom and unanimous vote the remaining 27 Member States accepting an extension of the Notice Period).
For the withdrawal agreement to be finalised, the draft has to be approved first by the European Parliament by simple majority vote and second by the European Council by qualified majority vote or unanimity depending on the nature of the provisions in the agreement.
Any withdrawal agreement reached by the Government will then necessarily have to be ratified by Parliament by legislation in order to be recognised and enforced in the domestic system of laws in force in the UK.
“Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements” [emphasisadded].
In the United Kingdom, there is no written constitution which serves as a basis of the country’s legal system. The source of constitutional law is the legislation made by the Parliament, the judicial precedent (also known as common law) and constitutional conventions.
A domestic constitutional conflict has now arisen between Government and Parliament.
The Government’s position expressed in the statement above is that, following the referendum, the Government has taken a decision to leave the European Union and the Government has the power and the authority using the royal prerogative to notify the European Council of that decision without seeking prior authorisation from Parliament; in other words, the Government enjoys complete discretion about as to serve the Notice.
For clarity, the royal prerogative is a collection of executive powers held by the Crown, since the Middle-Ages, and by the Government to enable them to perform their constitutional functions. Such powers are not set out in statute or written legislation.
Parliament has instead expressed the view that the Government should not trigger Article 50 without consulting Parliament and that it is constitutionally appropriate that Parliament should make the decision to act following the referendum. The Selected Committee on Constitution of the House of Lords expressly stated: “Parliament should play a central role in the decision to trigger the Article 50 process, in the subsequent negotiation process, and in approving or otherwise the final terms under which the UK leaves the EU”.
Proceedings for judicial review have been brought in the High Court of Justice in London before The Lord Chief Justice, The Master of the Rolls and Lord Justice Sales in order to obtain a declaration from the Court on whether, under UK constitutional laws, the Government can lawfully use prerogative powers to give notification to the EU under art. 50 of the Lisbon Treaty without the Parliament’s formal authorisation. The argument before the Court is that only Parliament has the power to invoke art. 50.
A judgment is expected in the following weeks and it is certain that the matter will be “leapfrogged” to the Supreme Court for a final decision in the event of an appeal.
A similar action in respect of the Brexit process was commenced in Northern Ireland in the High Court of Belfast and judgment has been reserved.
The negotiating process is certainly not straightforward and it is enormously complex. Any negotiation will have to be based on three fundamental issues: single market for goods and services, immigration and undertakings made by the UK to contribute to European budgets, which has been estimated in the region of €20 billion. The outcome will determine a “hard Brexit” or a “soft Brexit” in consideration of the level of agreement (or disagreement) reached with the EU.
The Government has suggested repealing the European Communities Act 1972 (which currently implements the rights and duties of the EU treaties into UK domestic law) with the Great Repeal Bill which would convert all existing EU law (estimated in the number of 12,295 regulations) into national law with one statute and perhaps with no proper debate in the House of Commons. It is suggested, however, that this will be insufficient.
Brexit has not been started yet and we are still a long way from it. It will only commence with the triggering of Art. 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and at moment we can only wait and see who will eventually decide on its exercise – Parliament or Government.
* The headings of this article are extracts from Theresa May’s speech to the Conservative Party conference on 2nd October 2016.
Sanctions for failure to comply with rules, practice direction and court orders on case management can be drastic or out and out catastrophic – a lively topic for Italians, involved in English litigation, to be informed about, as their own civil procedure culture is very different, and in which adjournments and an unfettered right to appeal make English norms quite alien.
An Italian litigant in England needs to absorb the following principles and accept them, otherwise he risks walking into a minefield.
The English court can strike out a party’s statement of case where that party is not compliant with a rule, practice, direction or order CPR r 3.4(2)(c).
2. An application for relief must be supported by evidence.
English practitioners in contentious matters have been sobered by the hard decision in the case ofMitchell v News Group Newspapers Ltd EWCA Civ 1537. This decision made in respect of a failure of lawyers to file a costs’ budget – the opportunity to claim costs was effectively lost at the outset of the litigation by the failure to submit the costs’ budget – is the touchstone for legal advisers and their clients in understanding the attitude of the courts to failure by a party to adhere strictly and accurately to the requirements of case management set out in the rules, practice directions, and the tailored orders of the court in the individual case.
To be in the position of needing to beg for the court’s mercy is something to be avoided, as indulgence is not to be presumed on.
(1) is more than trivial – any non-compliance that is of substance rather than form e.g. filing and serving a document late is an omission of substance rather than form, if the non-compliance is anything worse than a narrow missing of a deadline to carry out a particular case management direction, where the party in default has otherwise been timeous and exact in carrying out its duties.
(3) unless a case management direction turns out, in the course of the litigation, to have been unrealistic and unreasonable as to its timing or perhaps implementation, especially if a timely application to vary the direction before time for compliance expires is made, in which case the non-compliant party may attract the court’s mercy – however litigation is not supposed to be left to slide ineffectively out of close control, and timely applications to vary are essential.
(4) Deliberate ignoring of a case management obligation will usually be impossible to justify; an act of carelessness, which does not upset the Court timetable or the other side’s preparation of the case is less likely to be totally unamenable to a discretionary act of mercy on the part of the court, though Mitchelllimits the ambit of this mercy enormously. Carelessness can have grave consequences on other court users through loss of trial dates, cluttering of the judicial diary – NB every case is fact specific, in terms of the judicial perception of a party’s conduct; weak excuses of the type “I didn’t mean to become non-compliant” may be the subject of stringent criticism. There is no place for nonchalance in dealing with case management issues, precision is required.
Where non-compliance is in relation to an Unless Order (which should only be made after a history of cavalier attitude on the part of one or other of the parties to the litigation has emerged) it will usually be most difficult to invoke circumstances that will gain relief from the Court. An Unless Order is an order that tells a party in clear and certain terms that it must comply with specified directions or face the stated consequences.
In the light of the Mitchell case, the safer course is to comply with all case management obligations as though they were unless orders.
Legal Representatives need to be given timely instructions so that they can comply on their clients’ behalf with all case management obligations. A lay party that does not take this on board risks catastrophe, and in that event no criticism attaches to their lawyers.
The failings of lawyers to understand case management directions will not usually excuse their clients from the duty to comply. A party will not be excused usually for the failings of its lawyers.
A litigant in person may obtain relief from sanctions more readily than where lawyers are instructed. But any litigant in person should actively consider whether he or she is up to the mark to conduct litigation, because should his inexperience lead him into “non-trivial” non-compliance with case management directions and the court nevertheless gives him relief – and this is no foregone conclusion – the terms of that relief may well be expensive. The justice of the case is always fact specific.
The Courts look at all the circumstances in deciding the question of relief from sanction, far better never to have to seek the court’s discretionary relief or mercy.
This article does not intend to be exhaustive but to be cautionary and give Italian litigant readers, and ideally others, a hint at the problems that the Jackson reforms can cause them, as the English litigation “climate” is so very different from the Italian.
In the event that the client dies resident in England but domiciled in Italy with an Italian Will which appoints no executors, an application to a District Judge or Registrar will be required to obtain a Grant of Probate in England.
The application would have to first be made by the person who is entrusted with the administration of the estate in Italy. Where there is no such person, then the beneficiaries will be entitled to apply for the grant.
If the Will was written in English and appointed executors, or if the Will referred to someone and described their role in the capacity of an Executor, this would enable a Grant of Probate to be obtained without an application to the Court. In addition, where the whole or substantially the whole of the English estate consists of immovable property, a Grant in respect of the whole estate may be made in accordance with law which would have been applicable if the deceased had died domiciled in England and Wales.
It is normally necessary that the will should dispose of an estate in England and Wales or contain a valid appointment of an executor. This would suggest that providing the English estate is specifically disposed of in the Will itself, it is not essential that the Will appoints an executor.
The procedure for making grants where the deceased died domiciled out of England and Wales, is governed by the Non-Contentious Probate Rules 1987 – Rule 30. This provision is copied out below.
Rule 30 sets out two main circumstances in which the Grant of Probate will be issued.
The first involves an application to the Court in which a District Judge or Registrar may order that a Grant be issued to a number of people.
The first eligible person is the person entrusted with the administration of the estate by the court having jurisdiction at the place where the deceased died domiciled. A Grant in this capacity is made only where there is a Grant, Decree or other Order of a court clothing some person with authority substantially similar to that conferred upon an English Personal Representative, ie empowering him to collect in and administer the estate. A decree or order merely declaring who are the heirs of the deceased is not normally accepted as sufficient to enable such persons to be treated as entrusted with administration.
An Order which simply declares who are the heirs may however be sufficient to show who are the persons beneficially entitled to the estate.
Under Rule 30(1)(b), where there is no person in authority, the Grant may be issued to the person beneficially entitled to the estate by the law of the place where the deceased died domiciled or, if there is more than one person so entitled, to such of them as the District Judge or Registrar may direct. Therefore, the beneficiaries under the Will may well be in a position to apply for the Grant.
The alternative position under Rule 30 does not involve an application to the Court. Instead, Probate of any will which is admissible in proof may be granted to the executor named if the will is in English. However, Probate would still be granted “if the will describes the duties of a named person in terms sufficient to constitute him executor according to the tenor of the will, to that person” (Rule 30(3)(a)(ii). Therefore, the provision of person in an executor-type role in the Italian will would make the application for a grant of probate on the client’s death an easier one.
As regards the procedure required for the Court application, the original Grant or Decree issued by the court of domicile, or an officially certified copy of it, including an official copy of the will, if any, should be lodged and this will be retained in the registry. If the document is in a foreign language, a notarial or other sufficient translation is also required. The translation must be identifiable with the document translated and usually is annexed to the foreign documents. The translation should, if possible, be verified by the certificate of an English notary public or a British consul.
Please note that the Grant is in all cases one of letters of administration, with or without will as the case may be, and consequently the usual rule is that the Grant may not issue to a single individual if a life or minority interest arises under the law of the domicile.
(c) if in the opinion of the district judge or registrar the circumstances so require, to such person as the district judge or registrar may direct.
(2) A grant made under paragraph (1)(a) or (b) above may be issued jointly with such person as the distribute judge or registrar may direct if the grant is required to be made to not less than two administrators.
(b) where the whole or substantially the whole of the estate in England and Wales consists of immovable property, a grant in respect of the whole estate may be made in accordance with the law which would have been applicable if the deceased had died domiciled in England and Wales.
BILA Committee member and Law Society Council member, Maria Memoli, has been elected to the prestigious Management Board of the Law Society of England and Wales. Not only is she the first Italian national to be on the Law Society Council, but she is also the first Italian national to have been elected to this position. The Board is a senior committee of the Society with members including Law Society President, Lucy Scott-Moncrieff, Vice-President, Nick Fluck, and the Society’s Chief Executive.
Maria has been a Law Society Council member since 2005. Amongst her many roles, she has also been a member of the Law Society’s Gazette Editorial Board, on the Membership board for 3 years and was the Chairman of the Council Members’ Conduct Committee for 4 years.
Promising in her election statement not only to ‘talk the talk’ but also to ‘walk the talk’, Maria says that her background and experience equip her to deal with a range of thorny issues including ‘business planning, governance, VFM, budgets, HR, financial controls and risk management to name but a few’.
“I am absolutely thrilled to have been elected onto the Law Society’s Management Board and I am humbled by my fellow Council Members’ confidence in me. It certainly won’t be an easy ride running the Law Society, but to have an Italian flavour at the higher echelons of the Law Society is quite something – definitely a first !”.
Recently this year, Mr Justice Teare authorised a claimant to serve a claim to a defendant via Facebook for the first time in the High Court.
Australia and New Zealand –both Commonwealth countries with similar legal systems – are well ahead, having allowed service of legal documents by Facebook and Twitter since 2008. However change has been in the air in England for some time, as a similar ruling was made at the County Court in October 2009 whereby permission was granted to serve an injunction via Twitter.
The case is a commercial case and involves a £1.3 million claim by two investment managers against their broker and two of its employees. The broker denied responsibility and argued that in case it was held liable, it was entitled to recover a contribution from the two individuals, however no one was sure of the current address of one of the employees, a Mr Fabio De Biase.
The circumstances of this case were very specific: the defendant was a former employee of the claimant and some of his former colleagues were still working for the claimant and were in contact with the defendant via Facebook. They were therefore able to identify him from his photo and also establish that the account was being used as he had recently accepted some of their requests of friendship. The judge was therefore convinced that it was impossible to have his identity mistaken for someone else with the same name.
The Civil Procedure Rules deal with service of claim forms and other documents in the jurisdiction (England and Wales), in the UK and within the EEA.
There are two underlying principles which are encompassed in all the rules on service: (1) correct dispatch of the claim within its validity period and (2) effective service, so that the court has jurisdiction over the dispute. The general aim of the provisions on service is that insofar as possible documents have to actually come to the attention of the party being served.
Service is defined in the glossary to the CPR as “steps required by rules of court to bring documents used in court proceedings to a person’s attention”.
Leave in a specified place as per CPR 6.7, 6.8, 6.9 (or 6.10 in respect of Crown proceedings). In brief those places are: at the defendant’s lawyer, at an address that the defendant has provided or at a default address. The default address will only come into play where personal service is not required under CPR 6.5, and the defendant has no legal personal representative and has not otherwise provided an address.
Fax or other electronic means of communication. The key point to note here is that consent to service by this method is required, which can be given either impliedly or expressly. In particular for service via email Practice Direction 6A requires that the party served should always be asked if there are limitations to the format in which documents can be received and the maximum size of attachments. The claimant should always tag the email so to obtain an electronic receipt confirming that the email has been both delivered and read.
The place of service will ordinarily be the usual or last known residence of the individual. The claimant must take reasonable steps to ascertain the defendant’s current address or place of business and if unable to do so the claimant must consider whether there is an alternative place or method by which service may be effected. He then must seek an order for alternative service of the claim and this is where the new case establishes a new era for the service of claim forms.
There are no details on how service was then practically effected using Facebook, but it was almost certainly carried out by way of a private message with the documents attached by PDF sent by the solicitors of the claimant. However, at the time of writing Mr De Biase has not yet participated in the proceedings.
What is important here is that the courts recognised the increasing power of social networking sites like Facebook. This is clearly another example of the English case law system being by nature a flexible means in the hands of the judges which allows them to adapt rules of law, which are sometimes old and obsolete, to modern life and modify legal procedure taking into account changes of society.

References: art. 50
 art. 50
 art. 49
 art. 50
 art. 50
 Art. 50
 EWCA