R v A Rent Assessment Committee for London and others, ex parte Ellis-Rees and others

Rent assessment committee’s refusal to adjourn hearing challenged by tenants — Application in judicial review proceedings for an order of certiorari to quash committee’s decision on fair rents and for an order of mandamus directed to rent officer to expunge registrations made in consequence of committee’s determinations — Tenants’ complaint that committee wrongly refused a lengthy adjournment of a hearing to enable them to be represented by a QC of their choice who was himself a tenant of a flat in the block (although not personally involved as such in the appeals to the committee) and who had offered his services free of charge — Further complaint that committee, in refusing the adjournment requested, had allowed only a short adjournment of a few hours until the afternoon of the hearing day — An earlier request for a postponement of the hearing had been refused in an interlocutory decision by a committee of vice-presidents of the rent assessment panel — Tenants had been informed by vice-presidents that they could apply on the day of the hearing, to the committee appointed to conduct the hearing, for an adjournment, but were warned that they should come fully prepared to present their case if the adjournment were refused — Landlords had throughout opposed an adjournment — Committee’s discretion considered — Judge’s review of case law relating to the exercise of the court’s supervisory jurisdiction when asked to interfere with a subordinate tribunal’s discretion as to adjournment — R v S W London Supplementary Benefits Appeal Tribunal ex parte Bullen and R v Thames Magistrates’ Court, ex parte Polemis — Doctrine in Bullen and Polemis extended principle of Associated Provincial Picture Houses Ltd v Wednesbury Corporation — Question in such cases was whether refusal of adjournment amounted to a denial of justice because applicants were not given a reasonable opportunity to present their case, the applicants not being themselves to blame — Held that in the circumstances it was impossible to say that the committee had exercised their discretion wrongly — Application dismissed This was an application for judicial review by a number of tenants of St George’s Court, a block of flats situated over shops in Gloucester Road, London SW7. The first respondents were a rent assessment committee of the London Rent Assessment Panel, the second respondent was the rent officer for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and the third respondents were the owners of the flats, St George’s Court Ltd. W Henderson (instructed by Winckworth & Pemberton) appeared on behalf of the applicants; Simon Brown (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) represented the first respondent, the rent assessment committee; Nicholas Patten (instructed by Pickering & Kenyon) represented the third respondents; the second respondent, the rent officer, was not represented and took no part in the proceedings. Giving judgment, FORBES J said: In this matter Mr Henderson moves for an order of certiorari to bring up and quash determinations of fair rents made by a London rent assessment committee on August 7 1981 and for an order of mandamus directing the rent officer in effect to expunge the rents registered on that day as a result of that determination. The decision of the rent assessment committee which is being challenged, and on which the applicants here base the whole of their case, was a decision given on August 6 1981 on a preliminary point not to adjourn an appeal by the landlords against a determination by a rent officer of fair rents for certain flats in St George’s Court, Kensington. St George’s Court, as I understand it, consists of a block of 52 flats over shops in Gloucester Road, midway between Gloucester Road underground station and Kensington Gardens. The size and108 amenities of those flats are perhaps best indicated by the rents registered in the end by the rent assessment committee as fair rents. They were all, save for one much smaller flat occupied by a Miss Stuart — who appears in the history later — around £3,000 a year with amounts, in most cases, larger than £500 as additional payments for services. The flats are owned by St George’s Court Ltd, who manage them through the well-known firm of surveyors and estate agents, Chestertons. There is a very active tenants’ association, whose chairman is Lady Burford and whose vice-chairman is a Mrs Baker. The latter also appears later in the history and she was an estate agent for some 27 years before what she describes as her ‘semi-retirement’ in 1979. The history, I think, can briefly be taken in this way. On December 1 1980 there was an application by the landlords for registration of fair rents. That was received by the rent officer on December 17. Notification of that was given to the tenants on December 18, and the hearing of that application by the rent officer took place on February 10 1981. His decision was given on February 19, and on March 9 there was a meeting of the tenants’ association. I might perhaps add that one cannot go through the papers in this case without gleaning the suspicion that all is perhaps not well between the tenants’ association and the landlords in this block of flats, and perhaps has not been for some time. There was a meeting of the tenants’ association to decide whether or not to appeal the rent officer’s decision. As I understand it, the tenants decided not to do so, but on March 16 the landlords lodged an objection against the rents determined by the rent officer and that, as I understand it, was received by the rent officer on March 18. The papers went to the panel in the normal way and on June 23 1981 notification of the hearing date was given to the parties by the rent assessment panel. That date was August 6 1981. It so happened that among the tenants of St George’s Court is Mr Richard Rougier QC, who was of course not only a tenant but also an eminent leading counsel. He had, before this, offered to appear on behalf of the tenants free of charge. Unfortunately, August 6 is, of course, in the long vacation and Mr Rougier had other fish to fry, including having to be in the United States of America, as I understand it. The situation was that he would not be back until the week beginning September 28 and the most convenient date for him was October 5. Becoming aware of that, Lady Burford telephoned, I think originally on June 29 1981, but certainly on July 8 1981, to Sir Alan Dawtry. Sir Alan Dawtry was the president of the London Rent Assessment Panel, and I think Lady Burford had met him on some occasion. She rang him up in order to explain the position and ask him what should be done. As I understand it, he said that questions of adjournment were dealt with ordinarily by a meeting of two vice-presidents of the rent assessment panel, and there was going to be a meeting of that panel and he would put the matter before them. In order to make doubly sure, Lady Burford wrote on July 15 1981. I do not think I need read the letter but it was a letter asking for the adjournment and asking for the case to be postponed until October 5, which was the only date in effect that Mr Rougier could be there, because after that he was going to be heavily engaged in other matters. The request for an adjournment was mentioned to Chestertons and on July 21 they wrote refusing to agree to any adjournment. The committee of two vice-presidents met on July 23 and decided not to grant the adjournment, and a letter communicating that decision was sent to Lady Burford on July 24. That letter is exhibited to the affidavits in this case. It starts off with a reference to Lady Burford’s letter of July 15 and goes on: A committee have considered the matter and I regret to have to say they have decided that the application should not be granted. Their reasons for making this decision are that it would mean a further delay of two months before the hearing involving a total period of nearly 11 months between the date of the landlords’ application to the rent officer and the decision by the committee; also, while the tenants are entitled to have whom they wish to represent them, the panel cannot be expected to agree to a postponement of as long as two months so that a particular counsel could appear. In refusing the application the committee also took into account the fact that the landlords’ agents opposed it. Then there follows a short paragraph which is of the greatest importance, it seems to me: It is possible for the tenants’ association to make another application for adjournment at the hearing but if this is refused by the committee they must be prepared to present their case. That was the formal letter from the London Rent Assessment Panel in relation to that determination by the committee of two vice-presidents. Mr Henderson does not seek to challenge that decision. He does not say there was anything wrong with the two vice-presidents at that stage taking that decision in the way they did. I pass on then to see what went wrong thereafter. I should say, perhaps, that Lady Burford was not one of the 14 tenants involved, but she was, as chairman of the tenants’ association, taking an active part in dealing with their case on their behalf at this stage. She telephoned Sir Alan Dawtry again, I think on July 30 and certainly again on August 4. At one or other, probably the earlier, of those calls there was a conversation about the adjournment again. I think it was probably the earlier, and I put it in that way because there is some difference between Lady Burford’s affidavit and Sir Alan Dawtry’s about the exact content of these conversations and the exact dates on which they took place. Frankly, I do not think anything turns on that at all, but it was probable that on July 30, in the conversation between Lady Burford and Sir Alan Dawtry, Sir Alan in all probability said that the committee of two vice-presidents was meeting again on August 4 and that they would perhaps consider it again. In fact, on August 3 the committee which was going to hear this matter had already been appointed. The way in which the panel works is that applications for adjournments — interlocutory matters, as it were — are dealt with by the committee of two vice-presidents until an actual committee to hold the hearing is appointed. Once that committee is appointed all interlocutory matters are dealt with by that committee and not by the committee of two vice-presidents. So when the vice-presidents met on August 4 the matter was out of their hands. There was another conversation, as I have indicated, on August 4 between Lady Burford and Sir Alan. I think it was the result of that conversation which has caused the sense of indignation which is apparent to the tenants in this case. It is clear that as a result of that conversation, Lady Burford understood that the application which would have to be made on August 6 to the committee for an adjournment would be a mere formality, and she in fact phoned Mr G H W Ballantine, who was the partner of Chestertons dealing with the matter, and went so far as to indicate to him that it really was not worth his attending on the 6th because the adjournment would inevitably be granted. Mr Ballantine deposes to that. However, Lady Burford in her last affidavit generously puts the matter in this way: Even after the telephone conversation which I had with Sir Alan on August 4, when he told me that since the committee for August 6 had already been appointed he no longer had any jurisdiction to grant an adjournment, I still believed that an adjournment would be given on the 6th and I acted in that belief when I telephoned Mr Ballantine on August 4. With the benefit of hindsight it may be that the strength of my belief was not fully justified on the basis of what Sir Alan actually said to me on August 4. As far as I can recall the words used by Sir Alan on August 4 were to the effect that he and his vice-presidents saw no reason why in the light of the undertaking to back-date any increases that the rent assessment committee might impose an adjournment should not be granted, but that the matter was out of his and their (the vice-presidents’) hands; that there was a possibility that the committee would not grant an adjournment on the 6th and therefore that in case the worst came to the worst the tenants should be prepared to argue the substance of their case on the 6th. But he also said that he would be very surprised if an adjournment was not granted though not necessarily for the six weeks that I had suggested. In view of that paragraph I do not think it is necessary to go to Sir Alan’s affidavit for his recollection of the conversation. It is not quite the same but it is not fundamentally different. That seems to me to have been the position on August 4 and the cause of Lady Burford’s expectation that the adjournment would be granted. On August 6 Lady Burford turned up on behalf of the 14 tenants — in fact, one tenant had by then withdrawn — confident that her application for an adjournment would be granted. Mr109 Ballantine was there and opposed it. After some deliberation the committee refused to adjourn to a day of the week beginning September 28, which is what was being asked for, and decided to proceed with the hearing but on condition that copies of Mr Ballantine’s case should be given to the tenants and the hearing would be postponed from the morning until 2pm. Nobody was really available for the tenants at that stage, but they managed to get Miss Stuart to come along at two o’clock in the afternoon. It will be remembered that she was the lady who occupied the smallest of the flats in St George’s Court. She was wholly unprepared to deal not only with her own flat but with any of the others, but she was there and the committee heard Mr Ballantine and Miss Stuart. They viewed the premises, deliberated on the matter and, on August 7, they made their determination of fair rents which should be registered. It is that decision not to adjourn in those circumstances which is now challenged. But, of course, if that decision is quashed the result would be that the substantive decision would go as well and the matter would have to be submitted to a fresh committee for determination. Mr Henderson, who presented the case for the applicants most ably, takes several points. First of all, he says that there was considerable prejudice to the tenants in not being represented, and he points to the fact that in a subsequent application in relation to six other flats in the block, when the tenants were represented by Miss Baker — who, it will be remembered, had some considerable expertise as an estate agent — the rents registered by that rent assessment committee were considerably below the level of those registered in relation to the 14 flats on August 7. I do not know if it is safe to assume that that result was wholly due to the fact of representation, though it may have been, but I do not think that that matters. I am prepared to assume — in fact, I am astonished if anybody came to any other conclusion — that it would considerably prejudice the tenants if they were not able to be represented by a trained advocate and a fortiori by one who was of the standing of Mr Richard Rougier. So I do not really need to say any more on Mr Henderson’s first point, and I do not think anybody has suggested from first to last in this case that it was not of considerable prejudice to the tenants that they were unable to have counsel of their choice in that way — effectively not being represented at all. The second point which Mr Henderson takes is this. He says that the extent of that prejudice to the tenants so far outweighs any prejudice to the landlords that no reasonable tribunal could have failed to grant an adjournment. On this aspect he invites me to consider a number of matters concerned with what in fact was the prejudice to the landlords. He suggested that on an analysis there was very little prejudice; it only amounted in effect, he said, to a postponement of the receipt of any increases of rent for the time of the adjournment and this would be balanced by further increases of rent which would have occurred by the time of the adjourned hearing due to inflation. In so far as Mr Ballantine had suggested that it would be necessary to rewrite his case, Mr Henderson said that was an exaggeration because his case was only based on the rents of other comparable flats in St George’s Court and there would be no change in those over the period of the adjournment. I should perhaps say that under the Housing Act 1980 increases of rent take effect from the date of registration — which in a case such as this would be the date on which the rent assessment committee determined the new rent — and that was the reason why the offer that Lady Burford was making that any increase of rent should be back-dated to August 6 failed to get off the ground. It was not an order which the rent assessment committee could make, and if it had been tendered voluntarily and accepted it was a matter which was declared to be illegal under the Rent Acts. So that suggestion could not be acted on. There is a statutory provision for adjournment in the rules governing the procedure of rent assessment committees. It is regulation 8 of the Rent Assessment Committees (England & Wales) Regulations 1971. Of course, as there is a statutory provision governing adjournments, it is that statutory provision which obviously governs the situation in which this rent assessment committee found itself on August 6. It reads in this way: The committee at their discretion may of their own volition or at the request of the parties, or one of them, at any time and from time to time postpone or adjourn a hearing but they shall not do so at the request of one party only unless, having regard to the grounds on which and the time at which such request was made against the parties, they deem it reasonable to do so. Such notice of any postponed or adjourned hearing which is reasonable in the circumstances shall be given to the parties by the committee. I might add one additional comment about the rent assessment committee and that is this — and I hope I am right — I have been unable to discover that they have any power to award costs and, of course, very frequently the award of costs is a matter which can take care of injustices when an adjournment is asked for. That is the provision which governs this committee, it seems to me, in determining whether or not to grant an adjournment. But if this court is to review such a determination it would, I think, be against the background of the well-known reluctance of courts generally to interfere with matters of discretion when exercised by subordinate courts. In addition to that there is another factor in this case which seems to me to be of vital importance. This court does not exercise an appellate jurisdiction: it exercises a supervisory jurisdiction, and so rules which apply to courts considering discretions in their appellate jurisdiction do not necessarily apply when this court is considering prerogative rights, in which case we have purely a supervisory jurisdiction. Mr Henderson referred me to two cases: Scutt v Scutt [1950] WN 286 and Walker v Walker [1967] 1 WLR 327. Both those cases were instances of the Divisional Court of the Probate, Divorce & Admiralty Division exercising an appellate jurisdiction from decisions of justices. Neither of them were decisions of this court exercising, on the contrary, a supervisory jurisdiction. I emphasise the difference because there are circumstances in which an appellate court, though usually with extreme reluctance, will interfere with the discretion of a lower court if the appellate court thinks that the lower tribunal has in fact exercised its discretion wholly wrongly. I have been referred also to the case of Hanson v The Church Commissioners [1978] 1 QB 823. I do not want to spend too much time on this case. The facts were very briefly these. This was a rent assessment committee case but the tenant had asked the clerk whether he could withdraw his application or his appeal, and the clerk — erroneously as it turned out — had said he could. The tenant thereafter assumed that the thing was dead. The landlords’ surveyors, however, turned up at the hearing and they argued that whereas they had, in fact, not worried so much about the rent which was registered, they wanted to take the present opportunity to ask the rent assessment committee to increase it. The rent assessment committee proceeded to do so. They then went to have a look at the premises and when they got there the tenant was not there but his wife was. They asked his wife if they could come in and look but his wife demurred a bit and said she had better ring up the tenant. When the tenant heard about it he said: ‘No, you jolly well do not come into my house without me, but what is all this about anyway?’  The chairman explained that they had already decided to increase the rent, or words to that effect, and the tenant said: ‘Hold on a minute, give me half an hour and let me come and argue the matter.’  The chairman in effect said: ‘No, we cannot wait any longer. We have got a lot of other work to do. The hearing has already taken place and the case will have to go on without you. We will just have to record that you refused the committee access for inspection’, which is what was done. On those facts, if I may say so, perhaps it is not surprising that any court would come to the conclusion that the tenant had been denied any proper opportunity of putting his case. That in effect is what the court decided in that case. The Master of the Rolls referred to all the errors — I am not going to read it in detail — starting at the bottom of p 833, and I think the important part of that judgment appears at p 834 C, where he said: There was a further error, I fear. When the chairman telephoned in the afternoon, the tenant told him that he understood the appeal had been withdrawn and that was the reason he had not appeared at the hearing. On being told that, I think the chairman should have realised that there must have been a misunderstanding and that the tenant ought to be given an opportunity of being heard, at any rate before increasing the rent from £800 to £900. 110 Those errors were, in my opinion, such as to vitiate the decision of the committee. If I may summarise it, the landlords agreed at the statutory consultation before the rent officer to a figure of £800. Yet the landlords before the rent assessment committee applied to increase it to £900 in the absence of the tenant and at a time when he had no warning that they were seeking an increase. He had no opportunity of dealing with it. It is one of the cardinal principles of natural justice that a matter should not be decided adversely to a man unless he has had a fair warning of the case against him and a fair opportunity of dealing with it. It is interesting to see that the Master of the Rolls is there putting it squarely on that principle of natural justice which is often referred to as the audi alteram partem rule. Roskill LJ (as he then was) had this to say at p 838, and as Mr Henderson relied on it particularly I think I should read it: I am very conscious of the irritation as well as the extra expense which last minute adjournments can cause, particularly with tribunals of this nature, and I recognise the desire of any tribunal to avoid such adjournment wherever possible. But sometimes, if justice is to be done, adjournments are essential. I think this was such an occasion unless either the tenant with full knowledge of the position had refused to accept an adjournment or had been in a position to come along within half an hour as he had expressed himself willing to do. In those circumstances, much as I sympathise not only with the chairman but above all with the landlords who have at no time done anything wrong, I think this is one of these unfortunate cases where a muddle has arisen, and I would therefore allow certiorari to issue to quash the determination of the committee and he thought it should be remitted to another committee. That deals with the case of Hanson, and it seemed to me that that case was not strictly a question of revising the discretion of a lower tribunal to adjourn. The ratio of the case was, as I have indicated from the passage from Lord Denning’s judgment, the fact that it is a fundamental principle of natural justice that you cannot alter a man’s position without giving him a proper opportunity of meeting whatever it is he has to meet and a fair hearing of whatever it is he has to say. The principles to be applied, I think, are clearly set out in a case called R v South-West London Supplementary Benefits Appeal Tribunal, ex parte Bullen. That was a decision of this court on May 7 1976. The court consisted of Lord Widgery CJ, Donaldson J (as he then was) and Mars-Jones J. I am not sure that I need go too far into the facts of the case but the question was whether the applicant should be deprived of supplementary benefit under certain provisions of the Supplementary Benefit Act 1978. Under that Act it appears that if it appeared to the commission that a person was refusing or neglecting to maintain himself, they could make a report to the Appeal Tribunal, and if they did so the function of the Appeal Tribunal, as the court found, was to look at the report submitted by the commission, listen to what the individual in question had to say at the hearing, for which an opportunity must be given under the section, and then decide whether to approve the proposed restriction on the applicant’s rights or not. That was the function of the Appeal Tribunal. In Bullen’s case, the tribunal gave the applicant only 48 hours’ notice, and that was a shorter period than was customary. According to the applicant, the day chosen for them to listen to him was the very day on which, after many years or certainly a very long time, he had finally got an interview for a job. He got in touch with the tribunal and explained the position to them. He also got a social worker to ring them up and talk to them about it. Of course, the net result was that he did not turn up on the day fixed. The tribunal having been fully informed about this, and I am reading from p 5 of the transcript of the judgment, said: At the commencement of the proceedings we were informed by our clerk, Mr Whapham, that a communication had been received from the applicant stating that he was unable to attend the hearing as he had an interview for employment at that time. We were further informed that a lady from Blackfriars Settlement had telephoned to confirm the fact of the applicant’s interview and to request that the matter be adjourned. The tribunal considered the request for an adjournment, but were unanimously of the opinion that the reason given was not sufficient either to justify an adjournment or to explain the applicant’s failure to attend. Again, it seems to me that that was a somewhat draconian view to take and it was not perhaps surprising, in those circumstances, that any court would strive if it could to find that that was an unreasonable exercise of a discretion. I am dealing with this because this case is unreported, and I know that there are those in the court who are very interested in this matter and will not of course have had an opportunity of understanding what it is about. The Lord Chief Justice went on to say this: This is not an altogether easy case because the superior courts have always been hesitant to interfere with decisions of inferior tribunals relating to adjournments. That is because it is so often only the tribunal which is adjourning which really is possessed of all the circumstances and considerations to be applied, and to adjourn or not is a matter of discretion and accordingly a matter which superior courts are loathe to interfere with when exercised by subordinate courts. It is not so many years ago that Lord Goddard when Lord Chief Justice was saying that certiorari would never go merely to quash a decision of an inferior tribunal which had been taken after an adjournment had been refused. In fact he said this in the case of In re Ekins (1953) 117 JPJ 705: ‘. . . to make an order of certiorari because justices had refused to grant an adjournment would be to extend the ambit of the remedy beyond all authority and that the application must be refused’. Since Lord Goddard’s day we have advanced somewhat on this point, and the court was referred today to R v Thames Magistrates’ Court, ex parte Polemis [1974] 1 WLR 1371, where certiorari did go to set aside a decision of magistrates taken in breach of the rules of natural justice because taken at a time when the defendant had been refused an adjournment necessary for him to present his case. The question really is whether in this instance we are to adopt the attitude which we adopted in Polemis’s case or whether we distinguish this case and, if so, for what reason. I think that it is still important to remember that superior courts must be hesitant before allowing certiorari to go where a subordinate court has reached a decision after the refusal of an adjournment and that action is complained of. I think that the somewhat special circumstances affecting adjournment decisions are something which I would not wish to destroy, but it is quite clear from Polemis’s case that there is no absolute bar to the use of certiorari to quash a subordinate tribunal’s decision in these circumstances. What is the proper test to apply to decide whether certiorari should go?  To begin with, it is perfectly clear, I think, that if one can say of the decision not to adjourn that it was a decision that no reasonable bench of magistrates or other relevant authority could have arrived at, then there is no doubt that that is a case in which certiorari would go. Mr Sedley who was appearing for the applicant says that the law has advanced a little further beyond that and that it is not necessary to apply the strict test to which I have just referred, and that the authorities as a whole now demonstrate that this court will allow certiorari to go in this type of case if it is clearly established that the decision is unjust, wrong and not to be sustained. I think that that is the position since Polemis. I do not think it necessary strictly to show that no equivalent tribunal properly instructed could have reached this decision. I think it suffices if this court can say with perfect confidence and conviction that this decision not to adjourn was wrong. It deprived the defendant of the hearing to which he was entitled, either under the rules of natural justice or under the statutory rules in the present instance. I think if one applies that test to the present case the answer is that the application should have been adjourned. After all it was a very short period of notice which was given of the appointment. There was this important alternative engagement. If this man was genuinely seeking work, the chance of getting a job with EMI may have been the most important feature in his life, and one can well understand in those circumstances that he would not expect that the tribunal would require him to attend and possibly lose the chance of a job. When one comes to ask oneself what it was about the case that caused the tribunal to take what on the face of it was a very harsh decision, the reasons given I find unsatisfactory: indeed I find them virtually non-existent. All we were told, it will be remembered, was that the tribunal were unanimously of the opinion that the reason given was not sufficient either to justify an adjournment or to explain the applicant’s failure to attend. That seems to me to be an appreciation of the situation which is quite unacceptable on the facts as can be placed before us, and I think this is one of those cases, albeit they may still be somewhat exceptional, where we ought, if confident that justice requires it, to be prepared to say that certiorari should go in order to restore the right to a hearing which in this case the applicant has been deprived of. That case referred to the case of R v Thames Magistrates’ Court, ex parte Polemis. That is an interesting case. Again, I do not want to111 go into it in too much detail, but as this is a matter of some importance going to the jurisdiction of this court, I am spending a little more time on it perhaps than I would otherwise. The short facts were that Mr Polemis was the master of a Greek vessel charged with discharging oil into navigable waters. He received a summons at 10.30 in the morning of the day on which the vessel was due to sail at 9pm. The summons was for hearing on that day at 2 o’clock. A considerable amount of activity took place by the solicitors instructed by the owners of the vessel, and at 2.30, when in fact the justices sat, they applied for an adjournment. There simply had not been any time to collect any of the sort of evidence necessary to refute the charge. The justices refused the application but stood the case over until 4 o’clock. When the case came on, the defendant was unable to produce any evidence and was convicted. The way Lord Widgery, who presided in that case (it was a Divisional Court case), put it was this, on p 1375: To start with, nothing is clearer today than that a breach of the rules of natural justice is said to occur if a party to proceedings, and more especially the defendant in a criminal case, is not given a reasonable chance to present his case. It is so elementary and so basic it hardly needs to be said. But of the versions of breach of the rules of natural justice with which in this court we are dealing constantly, perhaps the most common today is the allegation that the defence were prejudiced becase they were not given a fair and reasonable opportunity to present their case to the court, and of course the opportunity to present a case to the court is not confined to being given an opportunity to stand up and say what you want to say; it necessarily extends to a reasonable opportunity to prepare your case before you are called upon to present it. A mere allocation of court’s time is of no value if the party in question is deprived of the opportunity of getting his tackle in order and being able to present his case in the fullest sense. He then referred to the well-known case of Local Government Board v Arlidge [1915] AC 120, and goes on: In this instance, on the brief and simple facts that I have related and, parenthetically, I have tried to relate them briefly also can it be said that the applicant was given a reasonable opportunity to present his case?  It seems to me to be totally unarguable that he was given such a reasonable opportunity. He had no time to take samples, no time to see a report of the samples taken by the prosecution, no time to look for witnesses, no time to prepare any supporting evidence supportive to his own, and that too when he was a man with a very rudimentary knowledge of the English language in a country foreign to his own. When one just looks at those facts it seems to me to be a case in which any suggestion that he had a reasonable chance to prepare his defence is completely unarguable. Later in a short passage on p 1377 C, Lord Widgery said: I would hold that where the central allegation on which an order of certiorari is sought is that the defendant was not given a reasonable time to prepare his case, the mere fact that the matter became apparent as a result of a refusal of an adjournment does not prevent the court from treating the basic cause of complaint, namely, the failure to provide the defendant with adequate time, as being a ground on which certiorari should go. There is another unreported case called R v Yorkshire Rent Assessment Tribunal, ex parte Lennard before the Divisional Court consisting of Lord Widgery CJ, Eveleigh J (as he then was) and Slynn J on November 1 1976. I do not think that I need refer to the facts. There is a short passage in the judgment of Eveleigh J on p 3 which reads: I am greatly influenced by the fact that he that is the applicant should, in the ordinary course of events, have been ready by December 12. The tribunal were entitled to expect him to be ready to present his case on that day. His request, in effect, amounted to a request for a short adjournment and this was granted. In those circumstances I find it impossible to say that the tribunal came to a wrong decision and would dismiss this application. Perhaps in explanation I should add that after having been granted a short adjournment he turned up on the adjourned hearing, applied for another adjournment and when that was not granted disappeared. The principle was followed and the Lord Chief Justice in that case referred back to what was said in Bullen. It seems to me that in both those cases where the court allowed certiorari to go (in Bullen and in Polemis) and, I might also add, in Hanson, the ratio of the decision was that the refusal of an adjournment amounted to a denial of justice because the applicant in consequence was given no reasonable opportunity to present his case. In Bullen he had only 48 hours’ notice and a very good reason for his application for an adjournment; in Polemis he had even less notice of the hearing and even better reason for asking for an adjournment. In both cases, therefore, the applicant was not in any way at fault. Looking at the tribunal in both cases, the court considered that they were at fault. In Bullen they really gave no reasons for not acceding to what the court considered a perfectly reasonable and justified request; in Polemis, as the passages later in the judgment from those I have read show, the court took the view that there were other matters which those justices should have taken into consideration to overcome the difficulty which was apparent to them that the ship was due to sail in a few hours. Similarly, when one looks at the case of Hanson, there was no fault on the part of the applicant there but the court felt that the tribunal had wholly failed to appreciate the applicant’s situation and, indeed, the surrounding situation as well. Of course, I am bound by those cases, and I think that the position is broadly this. While it is wrong to suggest that a court cannot go beyond the Wednesbury principle in considering cases of this kind, the only extension it will allow itself is when it can be said not only that refusal of an adjournment amounted to a denial of justice because the applicant was not given a reasonable opportunity to present his case, but also that looking at the background it would be fair to say that the applicant was not to blame and that the tribunal should have realised that the refusal of the adjournment would cause that type of injustice to which I have referred. Against that background one has to consider what was before this rent assessment committee. They clearly considered the matter carefully. I am not going to read it but there is a whole foolscap page and rather more of closely typed material indicating what were the matters which were put in front of them and, quite clearly, they had taken them into account and properly taken them into account. They set out the matters urged by both Lady Burford and Mr Ballantine on behalf of the respective parties, and there is no suggestion from the applicants here that they missed out anything of importance which was in fact put before them by Lady Burford. It is not in particular suggested that Lady Burford’s impression gained from her conversation with Sir Alan Dawtry was conveyed to the rent assessment committee. The conclusion they came to was this, and I should read paragraph 6: After serious consideration of all the issues the committee announced that an adjournment was refused. It appears that the tenants had known since March 1981 that the landlords objected to the rent officer’s determination and that therefore a committee hearing would be arranged in due course; and the panel committee of vice-presidents which had declined the request for adjournment on July 23 had reminded the tenants that the hearing would proceed as scheduled one month before, and left them two weeks to make alternative arrangements for representation if they wished. The landlords’ agents had justifiably gone ahead on the basis of that committee decision and the one new circumstance, the offer that any increase should be voluntarily back-dated, was, not unreasonably in this committee’s view, unacceptable to the landlords at this late stage. Measuring the fairness of reaching a decision with as little delay as possible against the natural rights of the parties to have reasonable opportunity to prepare and present their case, it was decided to be on balance just to proceed; with the condition that copies of Mr Ballantine’s case should immediately be made available to the tenants and that examination of this should not commence until 2 pm. Paraphrasing the matter, it seems to me that the committee had before it two positions to consider. On the one hand there were the landlords maintaining first that they had at all times opposed any application and that the tenants knew this. Secondly, that they had in the circumstances justifiably gone ahead on the basis that the hearing would take place on August 6 and, third, that an adjournment would involve rewriting the landlords’ case because the passage of two further months of inflation would make a significant difference. On the other hand, there were the tenants who had been told on July 24 that an adjournment would not be granted in advance and that they must be prepared to present their case on August 6 if an application on that day to adjourn was refused, and that despite that warning had turned up unprepared. It seems to me that on those facts the committee were justified in taking the decision which they did, and whether one applies the principle of Associated Provincial Picture Houses Ltd v Wednesbury Corporation or the extension of it to be found in Bullen and Polemis, it is impossible, I think, to say that this committee acted wrongly. I have much sympathy with the position of the tenants. I accept that they were genuinely under the impression that the application for adjournment on August 6 would be a mere formality, and I also accept that they were under a considerable disadvantage in not having the services of an eminent Silk who had agreed to present their case. Further, of course, they were at the disadvantage that they were not prepared to fight the case on that day, but having regard to the facts which I have set out — all too extensively, I fear — it seems to me that that was their fault as far as the tribunal knew. They had, as the tribunal makes clear, had two weeks in which to arrange for alternative representation. For the reasons that Lady Burford mentioned they had not done so, but that they had those two weeks seems to me to be abundantly clear and was a matter which the tribunal was certainly entitled to take into account. As I said earlier, this court operates a supervisory jurisdiction and not an appellate one. On the principles governing the exercise of that jurisdiction, I think this attack on the committee’s decision not to adjourn must fail. The application was dismissed with costs in favour of the rent assessment committee.