In the context of rejecting an application for an interim injunction, the High Court has recently clarified whether a special principle applies to interim injunction applications in “political” cases.
The Applicant, Ms Josephine Hayes, is one of the founding members of the Liberal Democrats. By a Decision Notice dated 1 September 2022, a disciplinary panel of the Party upheld various complaints against her and decided to expel her from the membership. Ms Hayes said that she would commence Court proceedings to establish that this decision was in breach of contract and therefore void.
In support of that proposed claim, she sought an urgent interim injunction requiring the Party to reinstate her membership, in particular so that she could stand in the Party’s current internal elections for the position of Federal President.
Mr Justice Johnson dismissed the injunction application, holding that (a) there was not sufficient merit in the proposed underlying claim by Ms Hayes, (b) as Ms Hayes had not issued her underlying claim, the Court only had power to grant an interim injunction under rule 25.2(2) of the Civil Procedure Rules, which rule was not engaged on the facts of the case, and in any event (c) the balance of convenience pointed against granting an interim injunction.
The Judge also took this opportunity to consider whether, where an interim injunction is sought in a “political” case, the Court will only grant an injunction in exceptional circumstances. The Court concluded that there was no freestanding principle to that effect, and that judicial references to the need for “exceptional circumstances” or an “extreme case” in Choudry v Triesman [2003] EWHC 1203 (Ch), Nattrass v UK Independence Party [2013] EWHC 3017 (Ch), and Hayes v Sarah Virginia, Baroness Brinton [2019] EWHC 1785 (Ch), had been addressing the particular facts of those cases rather than expressing a general rule.
Richard Mott appeared for the Party.
A copy of the judgment is available here.