‘In this case the “court” in question is the Parole Board. The inverted commas are because one of the issues is whether the Board is, in fact, a court for these purposes. Mr Gourlay is a life sentence prisoner. On 10 March 2014 the Parole Board refused to recommend that he be transferred to open conditions (almost always an essential precondition to later release). The Secretary of State usually, but does not always, accept such recommendations. Mr Gourlay challenged the Board’s refusal to make a recommendation. In accordance with a published “litigation strategy” that it has had since 2013 the Board did not engage with that challenge. That strategy takes advantage of a practice encapsulated in a case concerning coroners, R (Davies) v Birmingham Deputy Coroner [2004] 1 WLR 2739, which is that courts and tribunals will not usually be ordered to pay costs provided they have maintained a neutral stance. Mr Gourlay succeeded in his challenge, but both the High Court, and the Court of Appeal, held that Davies applied to the Board, and so Mr Gourlay did not recover his costs. This meant, amongst other things, that his lawyers were only entitled to be paid at around a quarter to a third of the rate they would have received if party-party costs had been awarded in Mr Gourlay’s favour.’

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UKSC Blog, 10th July 2020

Source: ukscblog.com