High Court finds JCIO entitled to dismiss complaint against CoA judges exercising their judicial duties

A solicitor and the father of Indi Gregory, the baby girl who died in 2023 after courts approved the withdrawal of life-support treatment, have been refused permission to apply for judicial review over the dismissal of their complaints against Court of Appeal judges.

The claimants, Dean Gregory (pictured below) and solicitor Pavel Stroilov, lodged a complaint with the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office in respect of the conduct of three Court of Appeal judges: Lord Justice Peter Jackson, who gave lead judgment, and Lady Justice King and Lord Justice Moylan, who agreed with him. The complaint alleged that the judge included inappropriate comments and had implied that correspondence sent by Gregory’s solicitors was seriously inappropriate.

The JCIO refused to consider the complaint as it did not comply with Rule 8(c) of the Judicial Conduct Rules 2023. The claimants wrote to the Judicial Appointments and Conduct Ombudsman (JACO) complaining that the JCIO failed to investigate their complaints or to comply with procedure. The ombudsman found no issues with procedure and the complaints were rejected. The claimants brought proceedings for judicial review.

In Dean Gregory and anor v Judicial Conduct Investigations Office and anor, Mr Justice Dove said it was ‘clear, and a cardinal principle upon which the 2005 [Constitutional Reform] Act is built, that judicial independence must be guaranteed and safeguarded’.

He added: ‘It is important to recognise that in undertaking their judicial role a judge will often need to make findings or pass observations about the case to which they have been assigned which will be unwelcome or even offensive to parties or witnesses involved in the dispute. The protection of judicial independence also safeguards the ability for a judge to express conclusions in trenchant and uncompromising terms.’

A judge’s judicial duties, which can include making ‘some observations about wider issues’, are ‘not aspects of personal behaviour’ and are ‘entirely divorced and distinct from a judge fulfilling their judicial role’, the judgment stated. It added: ‘Once this distinction is understood it is clear that the first defendant was correct not to accept the claimants complaints because they did not comply with Rule 8(c) since on analysis they did not contain allegations of misconduct.’

Finding the decision of the JCIO was correct, the judge said it was ‘not arguable’ that the JCIO ought to have accepted the complaint and investigated it. He added that the JCIO was ‘fully entitled to reach the conclusion’ it did and the JACO ‘was entitled to conclude…that there had been no error in the process operated by the first defendant when declining to accept the claimants’ complaints’.

‘There was no procedural failure in the way in which the first defendant reached that conclusion and therefore the second defendant was entitled to reach the decision which was made. It is not arguable that there is an error of law in any of the decisions which are challenged in these proceedings.’

The costs order made in favour of the JCIO for £3,664, and the JACO for £3,040.63 remained in force.