CO/4967/2007 
Neutral Citation Number: [2008] EWHC 2068 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE 
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION  
DIVISIONAL COURT 
Royal Courts of Justice 
Strand
London WC2 

Thursday, 24th July 2008
 
B E F O R E:

LORD JUSTICE PILL 

MRS JUSTICE RAFFERTY 

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THE QUEEN ON THE APPLICATION OF GUY ROGER AINSWORTH ARGLES
Claimant 
‑v‑ 

THE VISITORS TO THE INNS OF COURT
Defendant 
and

THE BAR STANDARDS BOARD
Interested Party 
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The Claimant appeared on his own behalf
Ms I Simler QC (instructed by Berrymans Lace Mawer) appeared on behalf of the Interested Party
The Defendant did not appear and was not represented
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J U D G M E N T
1.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  Mrs Justice Rafferty will give the first judgment.
2.	MRS JUSTICE RAFFERTY:  These are linked matters.  The applicant by leave challenges a decision of November 2003, and seeks to challenge a decision of 15th March 2007, each of the Visitors to the Inns of Court.  Generally, the two resulted in the dismissal of his petition of 29th November 2005.
3.	On 14th November 2003 a Visitors' Court, Morison J the President, suspended the applicant from practice as a barrister and as a member of his Inn for one year or until he regained a practising certificate, as a consequence of a disciplinary hearing in November 2002.
4.	A Visitors' Court presided over by Cresswell J on 14th March 2007 confirmed that decision and made another finding, that it did not have jurisdiction to entertain a supplementary petition.
5.	The grounds of complaint are that the refusal of jurisdiction to set aside the 2003 finding was a decision wrong in law and the 2003 Court of Visitors was not duly constituted, pursuant to Rule 10 of the Visitors Rules.
6.	Considering the matter on the papers, Wilkie J, in April 2008, refused permission for judicial review of the 2007 decision ("the Cresswell decision"), holding there was no arguable case that it was wrong in law, but gave permission for judicial review of the 2003 decision ("the Morison decision").  It appeared to Wilkie J to be accepted that this was a nullity, as was the precedent Tribunal decision.  He specifically reserved to this court the determination on all issues following oral argument.  It is to that refusal that the applicant, who addresses us in person, points his application to renew.
7.	For reasons which will become apparent, it is impossible entirely to distinguish the application from the review when reaching a preliminary conclusion.
8.	The Bar Standards Board ("the BSB") took over from the General Council of the Bar its regulatory functions in 2006.  In late 2001 the claimant, a practising barrister, faced an allegation of professional misconduct, contrary to paragraphs 901 and 202(c) of the Bar's Code of Conduct, that from 1st March 2001 to 31st December 2002 he had practised without a certificate.  That allegation was heard on 28th November 2002 by a Disciplinary Tribunal and found proved.  On 14th November 2003 a Visitors Panel, presided over by Morison J, dismissed the appeal.
9.	On 23rd September 2005 ([2005] 1 WLR 3019) was reported a case arising on 24th January 2005, wherein a Panel of Visitors over which Colman J presided gave judgment in the case of In re P (A Barrister).  It ruled that where a member of the Professional Conduct and Complaints Committee ("the PCCC") of the Bar Council sat on a Visitors' Panel, he or she was acting as a judge in his or her own cause and should be disqualified.  There was also a real possibility of bias.  As a consequence, Disciplinary Tribunals were thenceforward constituted in a way which genuflected to the judgment.
10.	It followed also that a number of decisions, not only of the Visitors Panel but of the Tribunals which led to them, were liable, if challenged timeously, to be set aside.  That is the case advanced by the applicant in this instance.
11.	Mr Argles, who appears in person here and below, maintains that the Tribunal of November 2002 contained members of the PCCC not properly nominated, and to compound the difficulty one member of the November 2003 Visitors' Panel was similarly compromised.  Additionally, some members of the Visitors' Panel had not been validly appointed by the then Lord Chief Justice or his delegate, a breach of the Visitors Rules.  That is an area to which I shall return later.
12.	By letter to the Bar Council of October 2005, Mr Argles enquired about the position.  By reply dated 21st October 2005 detail was set out about which members were and were not members of the PCCC and at that stage, so it is contended by the BSB, Mr Argles was fully equipped to mount whatever challenge under whatever heading he chose, since he therefore had all information necessary should he seek to pursue a public law challenge relying on P.
13.	On 29th November 2005 Mr Argles lodged what he headed a "supplemental petition", purporting to take the P point.  In the Bar Council's answer of January 2006, it contended that the 2003 Morison decision was not amenable to reopening before another Visitors' Panel and that Mr Argles sole remedy was judicial review.  He was by then out of time.
14.	On 15th March 2007 the Cresswell panel sat and upheld the BSB's objection, pointing out that the claimant's remedy lay by way of judicial review only.
15.	For completeness, I add at this stage that by June 2007, more than 18 months from the date upon which Mr Argles was in a position to seek judicial review, he issued a claim form seeking it, both of the 2003 and the 2007 decision.
16.	Mr Argles was to submit, and briefly developed before us today, that the 2003 decision was a nullity in any event, standing proud of other complaints, because there had not been nomination of those appointed to hear him.  It therefore follows in his submission that his appeal has never been ventilated by the Visitors and they should have convened a duly nominated panel to determine it.  He relied on the Visitors Rules.
17.	Again for completeness, I rehearse in brief that the BSB has always accepted that failure to nominate the panel members could have given an additional ground for review, but has relied upon the fact that the two effective individuals were de facto judges.  That said, although it has conceded that the Morison decision was void for procedural impropriety, it did not concede and never has done that the decision is automatically of no legal effect.
18.	I need not rehearse the submissions developed by Mr Argles in this regard and the BSB's answer, save to say that I have had regard to O'Reilly v Mackman [1983] 2 AC 237 and considered it.  It would support the contention that a decision void ab initio be regarded as valid were a timeous challenge to it not launched, for the Morison decision of 2003 is arguably of legal effect with consequences until set aside under public law.  For reasons to which I shall come, I have not felt it necessary in reaching my conclusion further to explore that avenue.
19.	Mr Argles pursued an appeal process which led him to the Visitors' Panel without initially taking any point on the constitution.  What he did do was suggest to the Cresswell panel that it had jurisdiction to hear his (as he termed it) supplemental petition.
20.	It will follow from what I have already said, that delay features large in this case and I now set out the salient dates against the backdrop of the familiar provisions.  In judicial review a claim must be launched promptly and in any event not later than three months after the grounds first arise (CPR 54.5(1)).  Next, under section 31(6) of the Supreme Court Act 1981, where this court considers there has been undue delay, that may found its refusal to grant leave or relief.  One of the reasons it may adopt is that the grant of relief would be detrimental to good administration.  It may, on the other hand, extend time if it feels it right, but only if satisfied there are very good grounds for its extension, importing a reasonable objective explanation for apparent failure.
21.	There are three periods of delay which fall within this consideration of the judicial review approach.  Even if it were assumed, as Mr Argles suggests, that he was compromised in raising the P point before the relevant decision, once on notice he should have brought judicial review proceedings against the Morison decision, and done so timeously.  The arguments were available to him by October 2005, and he therefore fell within the 3‑month rule.  By then he knew that the Morison decision was old and that P's decision had been reached in January 2005.
22.	Next, a period runs from January 2006.  From this point onward the BSB's approach is that only judicial review was the appropriate remedy and he was hopelessly out of time to bring it.  He should immediately have sought review, at the very least in addition to, if not instead of persevering with, what he termed his supplementary petition.  Finally, he allowed a further three months to elapse from March 2007 until launching this application.
23.	Although delay is a troublesome aspect of this case, one reason why I have set it out in some detail in this judgment, is that it was considered by Cresswell J.  Although at the moment this judgment addresses the 2003 complaint, I remind myself of the conclusion he reached, having done the same exercise as have I, where he said at paragraph 16:
"It seems to us that, in the circumstances outlined above, it cannot be said that there was any delay on the part of [either party] between January 2006 and March 2007."
24.	Given that proceedings for judicial review could afford a discretionary remedy, arguably the court should have regard to the strength of Mr Argles' underlying complaint, if necessary shedding any technical aspects.  The 2003 Morison decision turned on a perfectly straightforward point of law, which was, if not unarguable, certainly permitted of but one conclusion.
25.	Before us Mr Argles has been anxious to justify his path to this court and his approach to the Cresswell tribunal, citing his supplemental petition.  He rejects the suggestion that once on notice he moved away from the only remedy, that of judicial review, and contends that he was entitled, on a review of the authorities, at least to attempt to persuade the Visitors' Panel that he was entitled to invite it to review the Morison 2003 conclusion.
26.	Although the 2007 Tribunal is the subject of the second of Mr Argles' complaints and I deal principally now with the first, it is impossible to reach one conclusion without an eye to the second.
27.	Mr Argles has always suggested that his original appeal was not hopeless or without reasonable prospect of success, a point, he concedes, of limited value to him.  However, once he had made it to the Cresswell Tribunal, he was not only on notice, but also had the position very plainly explained to him.  Cresswell J, delivering the judgment, said this:
"26.  The 2002 Rules and the 2005 Rules deal with the Procedure ...  As to the latter, the findings of the Visitors are pronounced in a single decision decision  ...  The Visitors may (a) allow an appeal in whole or in part, (b) confirm or vary an order of the Tribunal whose decision is being appealed and (c) order a re‑hearing on such terms as they may deem appropriate in the circumstances  ...  The Rules make no provision for a supplementary petition challenging a decision of Visitors in a completed appeal.  There is no express jurisdiction to receive supplementary petitions at all, let alone in circumstances where the appeal has been completed.  Nor in our opinion is there any implied power to do so.  We do not consider that the judgments in Pinochet No (2) provide any support for the appellant's submission that we have jurisdiction ...
27.  ... the appellant's remedy is by way of judicial review."
28.	As is I hope clear from this judgment, although delay is acknowledged by Mr Argles as being a crucial point, I have considered the merits of this application and done so, arguably too generously to him, against the entirety of the way matters have progressed until reaching this court.  Mr Argles concedes that the crucial point here is that as a consequence of the combined effect of the varying delays, there has been no duly convened and constituted panel and no hearing of the original appeal at all.  He distilled the question which he submits catches all his complaints as follows, "Was the 2007 application so misconceived as not to amount to good reason for delay?" referring to what he entitled the supplemental decision.
29.	I am indebted to Mr Argles for the depth of his paper submissions and for the courtesy and articulation with which he has presented matters today.  I align myself entirely with the exculpation voiced by Cresswell J of that interim period of delay.  Nevertheless, I am not persuaded that there has been appropriate, timeous or prompt attention to the perfectly familiar requirements of this jurisdiction. For my part, although as I hope I have made plain I have reviewed the merits, I would find it impossible to extend time.
30.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  I agree.
(Further Submissions) 
31.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  Mrs Justice Rafferty will give the first judgment. 
32.	MRS JUSTICE RAFFERTY:  As will have been apparent from the judgment I earlier gave, there is a second part to Mr Argles' anxiety and it can best by described by the noun "nomination".
33.	Two members of the jurisdictional panel which sat on the Morison Visitors' Panel were not properly nominated by the Lord Chief Justice.  The Bar Standards Board has always conceded that that was the position.  The difference between the parties now, as I understand it, is that the Bar Standards Board avers that, no matter the deficiency, the two unnominated sat as de facto judges.  Mr Argles maintains that they sat, but neither as de facto judges nor in any way which would give validity to the decision of the visitors, an aspect he has addressed at length.
34.	He contends that since neither Miss Barton nor Dr McGarry was nominated, their nomination could not have been remedied ex post facto and it is now fatal to the success of the Bar Standards Board's arguments.
35.	He tells us that before Cresswell J in the 2007 hearing, with which I now deal, the point was ventilated and argued.  He was invited by Lord Justice Pill to take us to a point within any of the paperwork where the noun "nullity" was mentioned.  It is mentioned in Mr Argles' skeleton argument:
"If there is to be a hearing of the appeal to the Visitors it must be a hearing by a panel duly constituted as required by the Visitors Rules.  The panel over which Morison J presided was not duly constituted.  So there has been no hearing.  The proceedings before Morison J were, on this basis, a nullity ..."
I need read no further.
36.	That being so, Ms Simler QC, for the Bar Standards Board, simply repeats that the two invalidly nominated or unnominated individuals sat as de facto judges and she relies, if that need fortification, on Baldock v Webster [2004] EWCA Civ 1869.  I can take that shortly.  A Recorder was sitting in the Combined Court at Brighton and undertook a case for which he was not "ticketed".  No one was to blame and there was no suggestion of mala fides.  The Recorder was properly constituted a Recorder.  He knew he was not section 9 "ticketed".  All that occurred was that the wrong case found its way in front of him.
37.	Dismissing the appeal, the court remarked that the general reputation of the law and public confidence in it must be protected.  The acts of a de facto officer were valid in law.  There should of course be a court of competent jurisdiction convened to hear the case and the judicial officer should not be a usurper.  He should have a colourable title to sit where he sat.  That a judge were mistaken as to the status of the court in which he sat, rather than the nature or the extent of his own jurisdiction, made no difference to the doctrine.  The Recorder was not a usurper.  Since he was duly appointed a Recorder, he had colourable title to sit.
38.	If — and I make clear I do not — I had needed further fortification for my conclusion that Ms Simler's submissions are well founded, I would find it in the judgment of Laws LJ, who at paragraph 10 quoted from Wade and Forsyth on Administrative Law, ninth edition:
"The acts of [an] officer or judge may be held to be valid in law even though his own appointment is invalid and in truth he has no legal power at all.  The logic of annulling all his acts has to yield to the desirability of upholding them where he has acted in the office under a general supposition of his competence to do so."
39.	Later at paragraph 17, Laws LJ said that the real question in Baldock v Webster was whether the nature of the Recorder's mistake made any difference to the application of the de facto rule.  The Recorder's was as to the status of the court in which he was sitting.  Public policy underpins the de facto doctrine, which in his Lordship's judgment was a distinction without a difference. 
40.	Mr Argles has submitted that it is impossible to see the failure of the Lord Chief Justice to nominate two individuals as a technical difficulty.  It goes, he submits, to the heart of the validity of the Visitors' Panel, and if he can impugn that he would submit he must succeed.
41.	I have not found myself able to accept that submission.  These two individuals were not usurpers, as contemplated by Baldock v Webster.  They had a legitimate basis for sitting.  They were on a list of those deemed competent and eligible.  All that had happened was that one letter of nomination had either not been written or been written but not signed.  One can infer, and I readily do, that before they reached such a list their cast of mind and their ability to distil, analyse and judge had been considered by the appropriate parties.
42.	In my judgment these were de facto judges.  It follows that I would reject the application for leave judicially to review the 2007 finding. 
43.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  I agree.  That is the only point pursued by Mr Argles and, for the reasons given by my Lady, in my judgment permission should be refused.
44.	Are there any applications?
45.	MS SIMLER:  My Lord, there is an application for costs.  I do have a statement of costs which I handed to Mr Argles just before lunch or at lunch time.  So he has a little bit of time.
46.	MR ARGLES:  I have had a little time, my Lord.  I haven't really absorbed it, but there are perhaps — I don't know whether you wish, it is quite a large amount as you'll see.  Much of which is counsel's fees, I hasten to say.  But the....  I don't know how to comment on this, my Lord.  How to take your Lordship (inaudible).  I am reluctant to ask your Lordships to embark upon an assessment.
47.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  While you are doing that, Ms Simler I am familiar with the rules in another jurisdiction.  What are the rules in this jurisdiction about summary assessment?
48.	MS SIMLER:  My Lord, a one‑day hearing is subject to the ‑‑
49.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  It is the same as in the Court of Appeal.
50.	MS SIMLER:  It is the very same rules.
51.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  Should you not have disclosed this earlier?
52.	MS SIMLER:  My Lord, yes.
53.	MR ARGLES:  I am not complaining about that, my Lord.
54.	MS SIMLER:  I was about to say, my Lord, that we should have disclosed it earlier.
55.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  Mr Argles is not taking a point on that. 
56.	MR ARGLES:  I don't think so, my Lord. 
57.	MS SIMLER:  He is very kind to us.
58.	MR ARGLES:  The question is as far as the rates per hour, I have no objection to that at all, my Lord.  The sort of queries I have, it is minutiae really in some respects, is I don't know, for example, the attendances at court and client.  I understand that attendance on opponent, my experience of that was that I went to see Mr Tim Smith, who is the partner in the firm of solicitors, and handed in the papers.  I am not sure whether that refers to that or what else, but I can't imagine any other attendances on my opponents, and certainly not the (inaudible).  It is that I find somewhat bewildering.  Attendance on others, I don't know what that means.  But they are relatively modest amounts.  Attendances on client I can understand and would accept, and then one gets to the fee for preparation — my opponent's fee, and I have no comment to make on that because (inaudible) in some respects.
59.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  Attending on you, could that be telephone conversations?
60.	MR ARGLES:  I don't think I telephoned.  I did write to them.  It is perfectly true they did write back.  Whether that is an attendance is another matter.  There's work done on documents and so on, and then there's "other work not covered above".  That's ‑‑
61.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  I would assume attendance on opponents included letters.
62.	MR ARGLES:  Maybe, my Lord.  I follow that.  It doesn't say — it doesn't refer to correspondence under a separate heading.  I don't suppose ‑‑
63.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  There it is.  Do you have any objections to this sum?  You have raised certain points without saying what your counter‑submission is.
64.	MR ARGLES:  The difficulty is in composing counter‑submissions in the time available, because I have in fact been looking at my own submissions.
65.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  Yes, if you tell us, "I simply haven't had time and I need to make enquiries about these things", then we might go for detailed assessment.  But the object of summary assessment is to save costs, in particular costs for someone in your position. 
66.	MR ARGLES:  Is to avoid the costs of a detailed assessment.  I think I would probably be happy with this.  I did take gib to the fee of £12,500, which amounts to well over half including VAT the total involved, but one bears the fee for £750 which is mentioned elsewhere, which is the — of course that seems to be sensible. 
67.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  Fee for defence.
68.	MR ARGLES:  Fee for the defence in these proceedings, a day's work, and of course the very lengthy preparation, I am sure it took quite some time, of this rather heavy tome.  That's the only comment I would make.  But I find it very difficult and somewhat embarrassing to put these points before my ‑‑ 
69.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  We find it somewhat embarrassing to deal with them, especially where counsel's fees are involved.
70.	MR ARGLES:  I am sure you do.
71.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  But we are required to do it for the good reason that it saves costs.
72.	MR ARGLES:  Quite so.
73.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  At the same time we recognise there are cases where the just cause is for it to go off.  But my impression is you do want it assessed today.
74.	MR ARGLES:  Yes.
75.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  You are just hoping there might be some reduction? 
76.	MR ARGLES:  My Lord, the difficulty is I have to say — I have had to do this once, but then it was a question of taxation, the basis on which costs should be ordered, but it used to be own solicitor and own client, but we are arguing on a different point here and there it was for a client and one agreed the basis in the end without difficulty.  I think I would be content with this, my Lord.  It is — if one is going to start going and getting detailed assessments, then you're going to end up simply building up more costs quite unnecessarily, and I would rather draw a line under this.
77.	So, my Lord, I can't oppose the application for costs which my learned friend has made, and so that I would accede to. 
78.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  Thank you.  Let us deal with that first.  (The Bench conferred)
79.	Thank you for your submissions.  We accede to the application for a summary assessment.  Mr Argles has raised queries on it, without (one understands the position he is in) putting forward counteroffers or wishing to challenge individual solicitor's items.  He has asked the court to consider counsel's fee, which is a substantial one and a very substantial proportion of the whole.
80.	We have considered that and we come to the conclusion, having regard to the weight of the case and the proposed time for hearing and the issues potentially involved, that we should not interfere with the sum claimed.
81.	Accordingly, costs are summarily assessed in the sum of £22,067.86 inclusive of VAT.
82.	Are there any other applications?
83.	MR ARGLES:  The only request is I am not certain myself that this the right place to apply for permission to appeal.  I am not going to say I will, but if I need it I have to start here.
84.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  My understanding is we have no jurisdiction on the application.
85.	MR ARGLES:  I am pleased to hear that.
86.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  But I think if you are making one, where would the appeal go, to the Court of Appeal?
87.	MR ARGLES:  Yes.
88.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  Because it is not a criminal matter.
89.	MR ARGLES:  No.
90.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  No, I think we would consider it if you wanted to put one in by Monday morning on paper, we would consider it.
91.	MR ARGLES:  Yes.
92.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  With a copy to ‑‑
93.	MR ARGLES:  Of course.
94.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  Better still if you make it now.  Has anything arisen today that you did not know about beforehand.  I do not think so.
95.	MR ARGLES:  No, I don't think so, my Lord.
96.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  Can you not make it now?
97.	MR ARGLES:  Well, no — I think I will make it now then, my Lord.  The application is basically based on both the original application, the 2003 petition, and also on the nomination issue relating to the other ‑‑
98.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  No, on the permission application we do not have jurisdiction, as I understand it — you must take other advice if you see fit — to grant....  Once we refuse permission to appeal, then you cannot go elsewhere to seek permission.
99.	MR ARGLES:  Yes.
100.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  But we have power to grant leave on this morning's question. 
101.	MR ARGLES:  Could I apply for permission?
102.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  What ground arises.  First, that in proportionality terms we should grant.
103.	MR ARGLES:  On the first morning's application, my submission would be that the — that permission should be granted to appeal on the basis that it did not comprise the nomination issue which was considered this afternoon.  In other words, the nomination issue goes to nullity, which is the point which was argued of course, and in turn that affects the question on timing; because assuming the nullity argument was not something within the jurisdiction of the Visitors, which I don't think — the nomination issue is not within the jurisdiction of the Visitors, it was an application which could be properly be made to Cresswell J and therefore ‑‑
104.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  I am not sure I follow that.  This goes to delay you say? 
105.	MR ARGLES:  Yes, of course but in making the application to Cresswell J, the key point was whether that — in raising the nomination issue as well as Mr McGarry before him, the application is so misconceived as to not found a good excuse, to use the language of the cases.
106.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  That is the substance of this morning?
107.	MR ARGLES:  Yes.
108.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  You certainly argued that.
109.	MR ARGLES:  Yes.
110.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  And we considered it.
111.	MR ARGLES:  Yes.  But I don't think I dealt with the nomination issue in the way it has been dealt with this afternoon.
112.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  So that is your application?
113.	MR ARGLES:  That's my application.  I will leave it there I think.  (The Bench conferred) 
114.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  Application is made for permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal.  We have heard oral submissions from Mr Argles.
115.	The appeal was dismissed on the basis that there had been delay, and Mr Argles accepting that he had to succeed on each element of the delay issue in order to succeed at all, and the court having found against him on the second of the two periods, which was the one on which detailed submissions were heard, we do not consider there is a real prospect of a successful appeal.  The question of delay is one which the court has to consider, of course applying authority, but with a discretion applied to the facts of the case.  We do not consider that there is any other reason why leave should be granted.
116.	Accordingly, permission is refused.
117.	MR ARGLES:  I am obliged to your Lordship for that consideration.
118.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  Are there any other applications?
119.	MR ARGLES:  I don't think so, my Lord.
120.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  Ms Simler, this mistake was made years ago.  What are you clients doing about it?  There must be quite a lot of people affected by this.
121.	MS SIMLER:  It has been resolved.  There are now rules that state quite clearly that any member, whether lay or barrister member of the PCCC, cannot sit on a Disciplinary or Visitor Panel. 
122.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  Yes, but what about the effect on those who are in Mr Argles' position?
123.	MS SIMLER:  My Lord, so far as those who complained promptly and immediately, at a time when they had had a Disciplinary Tribunal hearing but not a Visitors hearing, there have been some decisions where the matter has been put right.  Where a person has been through the Disciplinary Tribunal process and the Visitors Appeal process, then unless they made a timeous challenge, my Lord, our position has been that the decision must be given legal effect until it is set aside.  So that has been the approach of the Bar Council.
124.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  And if the courts do not set it aside, as the courts have not, then there is no other avenue you are providing by which they can put it right?
125.	MS SIMLER:  My Lord, that is right.  That has been the approach.  If they raise the matter through the appeal mechanism, then it is conceded immediately and put right.  But otherwise, the Bar Council has resisted — I am not actually aware that there have been any other judicial review applications.  Mr Argles probably knows more than I do.
126.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  Yes, thank you.
127.	MR ARGLES:  My Lord, I think my learned friend is correct.  Before Cresswell J (inaudible), Mr Jay, who appeared for the Bar Standards Board there, produced a number of Visitors cases in which this very point had come up.  It does only affect appeals from Disciplinary Tribunals.  The Visitors' position is left in limbo, as it were, and — because of the decision today, and the only comment I would make, my Lord, is that the Bar Council, for good reasons or bad, publishes all these decisions under the name of the barrister concerned on the web site, and you may have seen reference to that in the correspondence.  It is paragraphs — I think it is pages 9 and 10 of the correspondence with the Bar Council, which took place in November — in my bundle, tab B.  It took place in October and November of 2005.  And this was a point, as Mr Jay said in his reply, this is of historic interest only.  But of course it isn't of historic interest, because there is my name on the web site saying, "You have been convicted".... 
128.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  You made that point in writing.  That was why I raised ‑‑
129.	MR ARGLES:  As far as I know nothing has been done to remedy that, they say, "You've been convicted, too bad. There's nothing you can do about it."  The fact these irregularities have taken place, you think the hearing is nullity and so on is immaterial."  That is really a political matter.
130.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  I am afraid it is, it is not something we can take further. 
131.	MR ARGLES:  I fear so, not even something you could comment on.
132.	LORD JUSTICE PILL:  Thank you, and thank you both for your submissions.