Greenwich/Rotherham Judgements - where to find them online?

[Flabbergastric]

School admissions related texts often refer to these two judgements:

1. Greenwich Judgement (R v Greenwich London Borough Council, ex parte John Ball Primary School (1989) 88 LGR 589 [1990] Fam Law 469) which held that pupils should not be discriminated against in relation to admission to the school simply because they reside outside the local authority area in which the school is situated.

1. Rotherham Judgement 1997 which said that catchment areas that coincided with borough boundaries are allowed.

I've read third party descriptions of these online, but I'd like to read the judgements themselves. Does anyone know where I might find the full text online?

As far as I am aware neither judgement is available online.

As they were so controversial, have such an impact on so many schools, and are so often cited, and occasionally misunderstood, I'm amazed they're not available for easy reference.

Prh, how would I get hold of paper copies? You're a lawyer who deals with admissions cases so you must have read them. Any reason why they can't be scanned in and posted online?

Scanning them and posting them online would be a breach of copyright.

You may be able to find the judgements in the British Library or the National Archives.

In admissions terms, the Rotherham judgement is the less significant in that it confirmed existing practice. The Greenwich judgement has effectively been codified in the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 and the current Admissions Code.

I find the Greenwich Judgement is often quoted by local authority representatives and school leaders but far fewer people are aware of the Rotherham judgement which modifies its effects. I only found out about it here on Mumsnet. As I keep telling people about it I feel I should actually read it.

Who owns the copyright of the Rotherham Judgement? Surely it's a public authority? Is it the Schools Adjudicator or some earlier equivalent?

All judgements are Crown Copyright.

Thanks prh. Would the parties to the judgement (Greenwich/ Rotherham LA) have the right to publish them?

Also if I contacted the British Library and asked for the Rotherham Judgement with just the year as additional info, and a note to say it was related to school admissions would that be enough? It would presumably help to have a reference number or at least the name of the court or authority that made the judgement. None of that is online at the moment, so can you give me any pointers?

Nok, they would not without consent.
In most other areas of law all the court of appeal and supreme court judgments are on line bt it is really hard to get hold of copies of other judgments. My clients have to pay for the county court judgmkent to be typed up if it was just said in court by the judge and tha tis very expensive. That licence does not give them the right to publish the judgment. The USA is much better on this - I could read the indictment against that UK boy who has been arrested in the US for alleged hacking almost right away.

I think if you are a lawyer you can contact the law society in London and ask for copies of some materials as libraries are allowed to copy a certain number of articles (with a limit) from one journal but that's articles about a case not the case itself.

It is always worth doing a google search just in case a judgment is on line.

Sometimes judgments are put on this database
but I only found a mention of the cae in another one on there:
www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2002/900.html&query=(Greenwich)+AND+(London)+AND+(Borough)+AND+(Council)+AND+(ex)+AND+(parte)+AND+(John)+AND+(Ball)+AND+(Primary)+AND+(School)

So (hypothetically) as a school governor, if someone complained to the Schools Adjudicator that my school's admissions policy appeared to breach the Greenwich Judgement, but we wished to defend it, citing the Rotherham Judgement, we would be on thin ice, relying on some scanty online summaries of that judgement, rather than solid fact.

Even those schools that do know about the Rotherham Judgement are likely to be more cautious than necessary in setting catchment areas that coincide with borough boundaries. In my experience most assume it simply can't be done and the LA officers and local councillors are in that camp too. It has become an entrenched urban myth.

I've not used the British Library to read judgements so I can't really help. I suspect you would need to get a Reader Pass and visit them in person.

I can, however, tell you that Rotherham was R v Rotherham Metropolitan Council ex parte Clark and others [1997] EWCA Civ 2768 and Greenwich was R v Greenwich London Borough Council, ex parte John Ball Primary School (1989) 88 LGR 589 [1990] Fam Law 469.

Hadn't seen your latest post. I'm sure the Schools Adjudicator has full details of the Rotherham judgement so you wouldn't be on thin ice in that situation.

Also presumably you could get the judgments from any solicitor or barrister you might be using as they would have law reports. Court of appeal judgments are on line as I said above. High Court is not I think a precedent other than over the county court although they can be persuasive which is why the court of appeal and higher judgments tend to be of more interest.

Yes Lucy, but schools shouldn't need to consult lawyers in order to handle admissions policy objections. IIRC a recent Schools Adjudicator described it as a worrying trend in their annual report. However, if all the necessary information is locked in lawyers' expensive-to-open cupboards schools might feel they have no choice.

I feel very strongly about it and want judgments open to all (as a solicitor who doesn't pay a penny for access to anythnig by the way so I am in the same boat as indvidiauls on the thread). As said above Bailli has most of the important recent judgments. The problem I found yesterday looking for this one is it is old. I bet if it were decided recently it would be on there. Also I think all precedent decisions which I think tends to be Court of Appeal and higher are now published. You used to have to buy court reports or go to libraries but not now.

I think we should make it easier for people to find the law. The other difficulty (or advantage some people would think) is having to go to courts to get details of cases - journalists send them in for big cases whereas I think in parts of the US each thing is put on line - so someone sues someone and the claim is on line, someone defends it and the defence is on line (aside from family cases as privacy is important there) perhaps we should move to those documents being available but I am not sure everyone bringing a case wants it easy for people to see them rather than having to go to the court.

Also people need to know what is a good document. The other side in something told my new client to use me because my new client had a really bad contract they were using he'd bought on line. Yet you can buy good contracts on line if you know what you are looking for and first thing today by coincidence I am emailing another new client who is using the same not very good on line source of a contract and I have had to tell her it will be cheaper if we tear up her version and start with a better one - not because she bought a contract on line but because she bought a bad one.

It is Bailii.org (British and Irish Legal Information Institute) - if you try the spelling given in the last two posts you are likely to end up on an advertising site. Bailii is a charity set up to make judgements available to court users. However, you cannot search Bailii with Google or any other search engine and their coverage of judgements before about 2001 is limited. Also, as a small charity they struggle to meet their costs - expenditure has exceeded income for the last four years. I would hate to see them disappear.

I can understand there being a cost involved if a paper resource needs to be digitised, and I'd happily pay the cost of that if it was reasonable, but once it's in electronic form I would expect it to be available to everyone online, not just me.

Surely the transcriber is paid at the time as part of the general court costs? However I've just read in the BAILII FAQs that the transcriber sometimes retains the copyright - bonkers!

Frankly, given what judges are paid, I'm shocked that they don't give their own judgements in written as well as oral form. In the past, when all "bosses" had a secretary to type up their dictations I can understand it from a cultural perspective but I would have expected that to have evolved with the times.

have you ever sat?

No idea what that means, so presumably not :-)

I assumed judges are well paid, as they are in a senior position in a very well paid profession. If they are not well paid then I apologise, and take my hat off to them.

OP - Do you live near a university that teaches law?

The first report is easily accessible either in the printed version of the 1989 LGR law reports (LGR = Local Government Reports) or in a legal database.

Problem is most of them are subscription only.

The actual judgements in law reports are usually only from either the court of appeal or the House of Lords, as it is only really cases that get this far that are recorded as a part of the evolving case law.

To be honest as long as you know the relevant part of the case, reading the whole judgment is not likely to be very helpful to you.

In R v Greenwich London Borough Council, ex parte John Ball Primary School (1989) 88 LGR 589 [1990] Fam Law 469 or “the Greenwich Judgment”, what is relevant is that -

"children should not be discriminated against in relation to school admissions simply because they reside outside the local authority area in which the school is situated"

Frankly, given what judges are paid, I'm shocked that they don't give their own judgements in written as well as oral form
They don't need to as their judgments are recorded and published in the law reports, if necessary.

Flab, it is getting better in terms of access to recent judgments.

Judges by the way usually take a pay cut to take the job. It's an awful job. I wouldn't do it even for double what I am now paid.

Remember most other cases in lower courts are not a precedent - cannot be relied on in future cases so in a sense they don't matter in the same way that a higher case does. So it is not that important to see other cases of the same level. What you want are judgments in appeals as they are then able to used in cases later.

The process in most smaller cases is that the judge speaks a judgment - the judges have hardly any time to read paperwork before or work after - their hours and role is far to busy and we do not have enough of them. They usually just say the judgment. That will be recorded in most courts although sometimes the tape machines break so after you can make a request for someone to type it up - there are competitive services you can buy from forthat. It's a very loads of hard work to type up these things so in most cases no one would bother having the judgment typed up at all.

In my bigger cases were hire a service such as livenote I think it's call where a private company sits in court and types at the same time as it is said evry word spoken in court, then corrects it in the few hours after the court closes and gets it emailed to those who have paid usually both side's lawyers (and also a copy for the judge) ready for the next day's hearing. I had a 50 day trial and we had that on every one of the 50 days. That is only going to be cost effective in cases with loads of money at stake.

In some cases like a trade mark one I had the other week the judge will produce a written judgement. In that case no one will be interseted in it like thousands and thousands of other cases. In a few rare cases the law reports will take a leading interesting new case and report it but most cases are really dull, don't make new law and just prove John Smith didn't pay the invoice Jane Brown sent to him.

Presumably if we ever get the technology and the funding we might get a service which automatically can take what is said in court and become like a kind of voice dication, dragon dictate service without needing a human to do it but we are not there yet.

PCL is right - they might be able to get you a copy at a local law library of a particular case. I have used the Law Society library for older cases sometimes. Someone this morning wanted a 2015 article on a case which I'd published and I sent it to them for nothing dsepite them asking for the fee. I'm nice like that...

they might be able to get you a copy at a local law library of a particular case
The only thing is after spending three years at uni reading law reports and judgments, I realised that as long as you understood the point of law in a particular case and sometimes remembered a quirky quote for your exams, there was little point in reading a lot of the judgments completely.