JudgmentJudgmentFinal determination of applicationJudgment:reservedJudgmentFinal determination of applicationJudgmentFinal determination of application
15.60In some cases, the judge will be in a position to give an oral judgment immediately following the close of oral arguments or after a short period of reflection. Judgments given orally (known as ex tempore judgments) are recorded; again, though, it is important for as full as possible a note to be taken. If permission to appeal the judgment is to be sought from a higher court (as to which, see chapter 18 below), the time limits are sufficiently short that it can frequently be necessary to seek permission from that higher court before a transcription can be prepared. This makes it particularly important that a proper note be taken of the judgment so that, if necessary, it can be filed with the application for permission to appeal.
1Note also that there can be a duty upon an advocate for the respondent to any application to appeal to provide their note promptly and free of charge to an unrepresented appellant: see para 18.29 below.15.61In cases of any complexity, it is likely that the judgment will be ‘reserved:’ in other words, the judge will take a longer period of time to deliberate and will then, most often, prepare their judgment in written form. Where judgments are given in writing, the practice increasingly is for a draft to be circulated to the legal representatives in advance. The purpose of so doing ‘is to introduce an orderly procedure for the delivery of reserved judgments, whereby the parties’ lawyers can have time to consider and agree the terms of any consequential orders they may invite the court to make and the process of delivering judgment can be abbreviated by avoiding the need for the judge to read the judgment orally in court’.
2Prudential Assurance Company v McBains Cooper and others [2000] 1 WLR 2000 at 2008E–F per Brooke LJ. See also Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) PD 40E (Reserved judgments). Such draft judgments must be kept strictly confidential to the parties’ lawyers. While judges will normally invite the submission of corrections of typographical errors, the circulation of a draft judgment is not intended to afford an opportunity to the parties to re-argue their case.
3See Egan v Motor Services (Bath) Ltd [2007] EWCA Civ 1002, [2008] 1 All ER 1156 and G v A [2009] EWHC 11 (Fam). Where a party or parties are not legally represented, the practice commonly adopted is not to circulate a draft judgment for correction, but rather to hand down a draft judgment ‘subject to editorial corrections’, allowing for any revisions to be incorporated before a final approved version is handed down.
4See, by analogy, R (S) v General Teaching Council for England [2013] EWHC 2779 (Admin) at para 5.15.62One matter that will usually have to be resolved after judgment has been given is as to costs. This is addressed further at chapter 16 below.