R (on the application of Hill) v Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales

Catherine Callaghan, acting for the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, successfully resisted an appeal brought by a chartered accountant. The Court of Appeal unanimously rejected Mr Hill’s argument that the original Disciplinary Tribunal’s decision finding him guilty of misconduct and excluding him from membership of the Institute was a nullity because one Tribunal member had been absent for part of the hearing and had returned to take part in the decision-making process. The Institute successfully argued that the Tribunal had the power to permit one of its members to depart and then return to adjudicate. It also successfully argued that the member’s temporary absence did not breach the rules of natural justice (contrary to the decision of Lang J below), because the parties had agreed to this course, but that if there was any such breach, it had been waived by the accountant’s legal representative.

The decision contains important analysis on the difference between constitutive and adjudicative jurisdiction, the scope of the rule that ‘he who decides the case must hear the case’, and the legal principles concerning waiver of procedural unfairness.

Click here to read the full judgment: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2013/555.html