Michael v The Official Receiver

J U D G M E N T

LORD JUSTICE RIMER : This is a renewed application for permission to appeal, Lewison LJ having refused permission on the papers on 30 December 2013.

The proposed challenge is to part of an order dated 31 July 2012 made by Roth J in the Chancery Division. The matter before the judge was an application by the applicant, Spencer Michael, for permission to appeal against a Bankruptcy Restrictions Order (“BRO”) made by Chief Registrar Baister on 13 December 2011. Roth J gave permission to appeal to appeal to himself on three grounds, of which the first was the "unfair hearing" ground. The outcome was that he dismissed that ground and also another one to which it is unnecessary to refer, but allowed the appeal against the BRO so as to reduce its duration by 18 months by advancing the expiration date from 7 July 2016 to 7 January 2015.

The first thing to notice, which I raised with Mr Khan, is that the appellant's notice was filed on 19 July 2013. So, at any rate, on the face of it, it would seem to have been filed very late in relation to an order that had been made on 31 July 2012. The explanation for the apparent delay is, however, that by paragraph 6 of his order, Roth J extended the time limit for applying for permission to appeal from his order to 21 days after the approved transcript of his judgment was sent out to the parties. For reasons which are not apparent, but perhaps do not matter, Mr Khan informs me that his client, Mr Michael, only received the approved transcript on 8 July 2013. That does seem to have been very late in the day. Nevertheless, on that basis, the appellant's notice later filed on 19 July 2013 was in time.

The amended grounds of appeal challenge Roth J's conclusion that the hearing before the Chief Registrar was a fair one. There was a practical problem in relation to that in as much as there was no transcript available, or indeed obtainable, of the proceedings before the Chief Registrar, but the applicant's point before Roth J was that the Chief Registrar interrupted and twice labelled the applicant as dishonest when he was making his submissions.

Roth J said that he proceeded on the basis that the applicant did suffer many interruptions and was told at least once that his answers in evidence were not regarded as honest. Whilst the judge could not, for reasons given, determine whether this was the case, he dealt with the appeal on the assumption that it was. He also recorded in his judgment that the applicant c