CA-2025-002307 - [2025] EWCA Civ 1378

The legislative framework

The Representation of the People Act 1983

Part III of the 1983 Act comprises sections 120-186. The heading to Part III, “Legal proceedings”, indicates its subject matter.

Section 120(1) of the 1983 Act provides that no Parliamentary election or return to Parliament “shall be questioned except by a petition complaining of an undue election or undue return (‘a parliamentary election petition’) presented in accordance with this Part of this Act”. By section 121(1), a Parliamentary election petition may be presented by “a person who voted as an elector at the election or who had a right so to vote”, “a person claiming to have had a right to be elected or returned at the election” or “a person alleging himself to have been a candidate at the election”. Section 121 further states as follows:

The petition shall be in the prescribed form, state the prescribed matters and be signed by the petitioner, or all the petitioners if more than one, and shall be presented to the High Court, or to the Court of Session, or to the High Court of Northern Ireland, depending on whether the constituency to which it relates is in England and Wales, or Scotland or Northern Ireland.

The petition shall be presented by delivering it to the prescribed officer or otherwise dealing with it in the prescribed manner; and the prescribed officer shall send a copy of it to the returning officer of the constituency to which the petition relates, who shall forthwith publish it in that constituency.

The petition shall be served in such manner as may be prescribed.”

Sections 122 and 129 of the 1983 Act set time limits within which election petitions must be presented. As regards Parliamentary election petitions, section 122(1) provides:

“Subject to the provisions of this section, a parliamentary election petition shall be presented within 21 days after the return has been made to the Clerk of the Crown, or to the Clerk of the Crown for Northern Ireland, as the case may be, of the member to whose election the petition relates.”

The counterpart in respect of local elections, section 129(1), reads:

“Subject to the provisions of this section, a petition questioning an election under the local government Act shall be presented within 21 days after the day on which the election was held.”

Sections 136-157 of the 1983 Act have the heading “Procedure on all election petitions”. The first of these provisions, section 136, provides for the petitioner to give security for costs “[a]t the time of presenting an election petition or within three days afterwards”. In the case of a Parliamentary election petition, the security is to be of “such amount not exceeding £5,000 as the High Court or a judge of the High Court, directs on an application made by the petitioner” and is to be “given in the prescribed manner by recognisance entered into by any number of sureties not exceeding four or by a deposit of money, or partly in one way and partly in the other”: section 136(2). By section 136(3), the petitioner is “[w]ithin the prescribed time after giving the security” to serve on the respondent “in the prescribed manner” (a) a notice of the presentation of the petition and of the amount and nature of the security and (b) a copy of the petition. “Within a further prescribed time, the respondent may object in writing to any recognisance on the ground that any surety is insufficient or is dead or cannot be found or ascertained for want of a sufficient description in the recognisance, or that a person named in the recognisance has not duly acknowledged the recognisance”: see section 136(4).

Section 137(1) of the 1983 provides for a petition to be “at issue” from the “relevant time”. Section 137(2) explains that “relevant time” means:

where the petitioner gives the security for costs required by section 136 above by a deposit of money equal to the amount of the security so required, the time when the security is so given; and

in any other case, the time when—

the time prescribed for the making of objections under section 136(4) above expires, or

if such an objection is made, that objection is disallowed or removed,

whichever happens later”.

Section 138(1) of the 1983 Act requires the returning officer, “as soon as may be”, to “make out a list of all election petitions at issue presented to the court of which he is officer, placing them in the order in which they were presented” and to “keep at his office a copy of the list, open to inspection in the prescribed manner”.

Section 157 of the 1983 Act, headed “Appeals and jurisdiction”, provides so far as relevant as follows:

No appeal lies without the special leave of the High Court from the decision of the High Court on any question of law, whether on appeal or otherwise, under the foregoing provisions of this Part of this Act, and if leave to appeal is granted the decision of the Court of Appeal in the case shall be final and conclusive.

Subject to the provisions of this Act and of the rules made under it, the principles, practice and rules on which committees of the House of Commons used to act in dealing with election petitions shall be observed, so far as may be, by the High Court and election court in the case of election petitions, and in particular the principles and rules with regard to—

agency,

evidence,

a scrutiny, and

declaring any person elected in place of any other person declared not to have been duly elected,

shall be observed, as far as may be, in the case of a petition questioning an election under the local government Act as in the case of a parliamentary election petition.

The High Court has, subject to the provisions of this Act, the same powers, jurisdiction and authority with respect to an election petition and the proceedings on it as if the petition were an ordinary action within its jurisdiction.

The duties to be performed in relation to parliamentary elections by the prescribed officer under this Part shall be performed by such one or more of the masters of the Senior Courts (Queen’s Bench Division)) as the Lord Chief Justice may determine.”

Sections 182-186 of the 1983 Act are headed “Supplemental”. Section 182 empowers the “authority having for the time being power to make rules of court for the Senior Courts” to make rules for the purposes of Parts II and III of the Act. Section 185 defines “prescribed”, as used in Part III, to mean “prescribed by rules of court”.

Section 202 of the 1983 Act defines a variety of expressions for the purposes of the Act. It states that “election petition” means “a petition presented in pursuance of Part III of this Act” and that “parliamentary election petition” means “an election petition questioning a parliamentary election or return”.