[2024] UKUT 127 (AAC)

The background to this matter is somewhat convoluted. Suffice to say for present purposes that Dr Kirkham expressed concerns to Judge O’Connor, the Chamber President of the First-tier Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber) (Information Rights), about the Tribunal’s decisions to strike out certain appeals. It so happens that each of the strike out decisions in question had been taken by Judge McKenna. It is also only right to say that Dr Kirkham was neither a party to any of the appeals that had been struck out and nor was he acting as the representative for any such affected party.

Dr Kirkham wrote to Judge O’Connor referencing his concerns and citing the case reference numbers for 11 such cases. In doing so, Dr Kirkham applied for the decisions to be set aside (quite which decisions were in issue is a matter of some dispute and I return to later). Judge O’Connor refused the set aside applications and subsequently refused permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal.

Dr Kirkham then applied direct to the Upper Tribunal for permission to appeal (UA-2023-001057-GIA) and in the alternative for permission to apply for judicial review (UA-2023-001058-JR). Initially I issued a strike out warning in respect of the application for permission to appeal on the basis that the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) may not have had jurisdiction in the first place to entertain the set aside applications made by Dr Kirkham. Subsequently, and in the interest of ensuring that relevant arguments were fully ventilated, I directed a joint oral hearing of the strike out proposal and the application for permission to apply for judicial review.