Church and State blog: Lawsuit for a lower court: The Mayor of London's GLA deprives Declan of his statutory right of review and appeal in respect of its decision to effectively terminate our eligibility for our flat but seeks its costs from the High Court

Saturday, July 18, 2015

Lawsuit for a lower court: The Mayor of London's GLA deprives Declan of his statutory right of review and appeal in respect of its decision to effectively terminate our eligibility for our flat but seeks its costs from the High Court

Mayor of London Boris Johnson

Part 1 (17 June 2015): Just before Declan is off to the High Court to file his claim against the Greater London Authority, we lose the internet at home (British Telecom) and on our smartphone (Vodafone)

Human Rights Act 1998

Article 6 (Right to a fair trial)

In the determination of his civil rights and obligations ... everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by the law.

The Greater London Authority (GLA) has filed with the High Court an outrageous defence to Declan's claim against them (see further below). They have hidden from the court much of the evidence Declan cites in his application; in particular, that they have made a decision to refer us from the Mayor of London's Housing First Programme to St Mungo's Broadway's Clearing House that effectively terminates our eligibility for our flat because we don't require support to live independently. They also fail to provide the court with any evidence that GLA Housing First has ended and will not be continued, possibly because the GLA website still lists Housing First under the heading "Mayor's rough sleeping services" here. Nonetheless, they have sought the costs of preparing their Acknowledgment of Service and this after having effectively admitted in paragraph 13 of their Grounds of Defence that they have deprived Declan of his statutory right of review and appeal:

Related Post (8 May 2015): Declan is vindicated in court and wins £750 in damages from the Single Homeless Project

We expect nothing from the High Court; but, as soon as Declan is denied a hearing to make his case, he will file a claim in the County Court seeking a review that can be appealed and compensatory damages. This is the claim he filed with the High Court on 17 June:

SECTION 5 Detailed statement of grounds

The Claimant challenges the decision of the Defendant to uphold his and his wife’s referral from the Mayor of London’s Housing First Programme to Clearing House/TST as unacceptable and unlawful because it contravenes the "secure exit plan" stipulated in the 2014/15 Pilot Funding Agreement between GLA and SHP at Schedule 2. Unlike Housing First, Clearing House/TST is "time-limited" in that eligibility for flats, issued on two-year renewable Assured Shorthold Tenancies, terminates when individuals are assessed as being able to live independently. By reason of upholding this referral, the Defendant is accountable and responsible for it. The Defendant has also failed to comply with its discovery obligations by not providing the Claimant with evidence that GLA Housing First has ended and will not be continued. The Defendant does not consider this matter suitable for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), and therefore the Claimant seeks permission to proceed with a claim for judicial review as a remedy of last resort on the said ground of illegality.

We fully expect to be evicted whilst Declan is fighting for his statutory right of review and appeal. From a Housing First programme that offers the client the possibility to extend their tenancy and preferably for their lifetime (see quote below), to a programme that is coercively telling us to move on because we can live independently. Who in their right mind would not fight for their right of review and appeal? In other words, this time next year we expect to be back on the streets looking for political asylum, while at the same time suing the GLA for illegally making us homeless.

From 2014/2015 Housing First Funding Agreement between the GLA and SHP at Schedule 1

Clients who meet the criteria for a Housing First offer will be offered long term tenancies.... Long term tenancies would mean for a minimum of two years with the possibility to extend and preferably for the lifetime of the client [emphasis added].

Church and State

MAYOR OF LONDON RSI PROPERTY
DAY 406 IN A WEEKLY PERIODIC TENANCY
SUBJECT TO A SECTION 21 NOTICE

(SEE PARA. 3 BELOW)

1. Our 308 Honorary Associates include 20 Nobel Prize laureates. Declan and I are engaged in a project that deals with the publication of issues significant to social policy in a number of key areas, e.g., climate change, population, futurism, atheism, and free speech. Established as Network for Church Monitoring, a non-profit company limited by guarantee, our main publication, found at the website, Church and State, calls attention to subjects, not the least which have been critical of the interaction between religious and secular institutions. We have been the target of numerous threats and actions, e.g., the former resulting in threats to Declan's life, and the latter, which have led to vandalism. The various incidents are on record with the police and other official agencies.

2. There are no less than 63 Nobel Prize laureates on the Church and State website from 20 Honorary Associates, eight articles, nine book excerpts and 33 petition signatories. (For example, one Nobel laureate signed our Nobel petition in support of human embryonic stem cell research and gave us permission to excerpt from one of his books.) Our list of associates also includes 18 US National Medal laureates, and six Turing Award laureates (the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in computer science). We have published one article and excerpted from the books of seven members of the British House of Lords. And there are 31 knighted professors on the site from 13 Honorary Associates, one book excerpt and 21 petition signatories. These figures are despite the never-ending assault on our email (this link reveals the targeting of our emails to, among others, a close colleague in Washington, DC as well as space advocates and Nobel laureates).

3. This is Day 406 for us living under the threat to life of a 'no fault' eviction by Peabody Trust.[1] We live in a Mayor of London's Rough Sleepers Initiative (RSI) property. Peabody's appalling new terms of tenancy have forced us into an unstable weekly periodic tenancy that poses a threat to Declan's life and inhibits our ability to exercise our rights. Declan accumulated quite a history with the Housing Ombudsman Service before he received the Ombudsman's decision not to investigate a referral from Lyn Brown MP on jurisdictional grounds. The Ombudsman was asked to consider whether or not our tenancy has been renewed like for like; and whether, if not, it should be in light of the landlord having accused us of not signing a like-for-like agreement. The Equality and Human Rights Commission will not accept a referral of discrimination from Ms Brown, the Commission's helpline (EASS) having grossly distorted the complaint against Peabody. We no longer have pro se access to the courts (see next paragraph).

4. This eviction matter came before District Judge Ruth Fine at the Central London County Court on 30 June 2020, when both counsel for St Mungo's (the charity in effective control of our tenancy) and Declan presented their positions. Declan lost the case and was ordered to pay £1,850 in costs. A publishing colleague in America cleared these costs within 24 hours of my blog post about this hearing for strike out on a related issue that was the essence of the claim, i.e., that St Mungo's would take a phone call to confirm that we are clients of the Mayor of London's RSI programme. Within a week of the hearing, St Mungo's had agreed to take this phone call for us both, the Court having ruled that they were not obliged to do so despite our circumstances. This time we escaped bankruptcy (counsel for St Mungo's asked for £3,407.50 in costs), but consider that to seek pro se access to justice in the courts has become far too dangerous for us. Declan currently has before the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman the decision of the Information Commissioner that allows St Mungo's to continue processing coercive support plans without our knowledge or consent and that also poses a threat to his life.

5. When it comes to traffic, we have had 10.7 million hits in the past three years on Facebook; however, I left the platform on 13 March 2021 for one year rather than risk being banned for life. It is indisputable that with any sort of level playing field Church and State would have far exceeded 2.5 million hits last year. In addition to a large variety of blocks without explanation, Facebook had so severely restricted our Page's distribution by October 2020 that it was almost as good as an unpublished page.[2] Currently, we are up to their 85th block since 1 December 2015, and as usual without an explanation. This block records as one half of their 3rd double block in the first five weeks of this year that lasted 60 days. Our traffic has also been curtailed by over 2.5K blocks on access to Church and State since 26 July 2016, including 29 full distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks since 17 May 2019 that have lasted for as long as 54 hours at a time.[3] About 70% of our hits are from Americans.

"This is precisely the hard hitting kind of response needed to clarify the unfair way Facebook is treating your highly reputable site." Don Collins, Founder, International Services Assistance Fund, Washington DC

Last updated: 26/06/21

_________________________

[1] Once a fixed term has elapsed, the landlord has the option to seek eviction even if the tenant has upheld their obligations in full (though of course the landlord must still apply for and obtain a county court order).

[2] 17/10/20: We have permission to publish this ISAF letter of 30 September to Facebook COO Sheryl Samberg. Facebook has so severely restricted our Page's distribution since 4 September that it's almost as good as an unpublished page

[3] Since October 2019, we have been defining a full DDoS attack as having such a high volume of up to 4-minute blocks on access to Church and State that we don't bother recording them all.

Church and State blog

Saturday, July 18, 2015

Lawsuit for a lower court: The Mayor of London's GLA deprives Declan of his statutory right of review and appeal in respect of its decision to effectively terminate our eligibility for our flat but seeks its costs from the High Court

About me

My Picks

Church and State

Blog Archive