The exercise of judicial discretion in rent arrears cases - Sheffield ...

The views of the claimants’ groups were, in fact, not dissimilar to the views of the
defendants’ groups. In particular, claimants were just as keen as defendants on judges
explaining the process and outcome to defendants. Some claimant representatives
expressed the view that certain district judges appeared not to understand their ways of
working: ‘the aggravation of going through eviction is immense and judges don’t understand
this’. There was a perception that those district judges with a family law background were
prone to be over-sympathetic to tenants with children. Other less than ideal judicial
characteristics were said to be paying too much attention to ‘sob stories’ and inaccurate
claims by defendants about housing benefit. There were fewer assertions that district judges
were ‘pro-claimant’, although one focus group of duty desk advisers said that a particular
district judge automatically made outright orders if the tenant did not attend, even if the
claimant requested a suspended possession order.
All focus group participants considered that knowledge of housing law by district judges was
important. When asked to consider a continuum of judicial approaches, from rule-bound to
discretion-led, all participants were able to identify examples of judges at either end of this
continuum. However, a rule-bound judge might be respected for their knowledge of the law,
and a discretion-led judge because of their willingness to listen to all the facts of the case.
Nevertheless, particular concern was expressed about certain deputy district judges who
were felt to place over-reliance on rules to the exclusion of other concerns such as housing
benefit.
The individual manner of some district judges had a large impact on the focus group
participants. For example, representatives of both claimants and defendants dreaded
having to appear before judges who were characterised as being ‘moody’ or ‘snappy’, while
lay representatives could feel intimidated by a judge who was seen as unnecessarily
legalistic. This might affect the quality of the their representation and ultimately the outcome
of the case.
Another view which emerged from the focus groups, not necessarily shared by the majority
of participants, was that the length of experience of a judge may make a difference. In
particular, older judges were perceived as not using their powers of case management under
the Civil Procedure Rules effectively, while deputy district judges were more willing to
explore the extent of their powers, for example to consider granting adjournments.
In this section we consider how far these concerns are borne out by our data. In Northern 1
court we were able to observe the different styles of two district judges, while in London
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