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

were aware of colleagues’ approaches in the same court, as is evident from the section on
London court, above. The same was true of other courts:
“We have frequent chats. We all know the difficulties, you know…I think we would all
be adopting the same sort of approach when it comes to reasonableness and things
of that nature, and suspensions of warrants and so on and so forth.” (DJ W)
“Usually the possession stuff, it’s pretty run of the mill and routine, and if something
unusual comes along, like if there’s a new advocate or something for one of the
housing associations, who’s perhaps been a bit heavy or something like that, when it
might come up in conversation. …I think we probably are fairly consistent.” (DJ V)
Most of the district judges interviewed considered discussions with colleagues very valuable
in developing consistency, whether in the same court or at training courses:
“It’s fair to say most of it you pick it up off each other.” (DJ J)
“In a three day residential training session, there will always be an hour or two on
housing… And also of course, these courses are very useful to talk to other people
informally and you share what you’re doing.” (DJ F)
If colleagues at the same court took a different approach, the interviewees seemed very
aware; for example:
“[Name of colleague] takes a more legalistic view…a very extreme view I would say,
it’s the other end of the spectrum. ...he’s been here for fifteen years so it’s ‘his’
court.” (DJ A)
A few of the judges we interviewed sat regularly in more than one court in the same area.
This practice proved a great aid to consistency as it enabled these judges to see what had
become familiar from a different viewpoint. One district judge who had the benefit of sitting
at another court hearing possession cases one day a month, felt that it:
Conclusion
“helps, just seeing sort of how different people approach cases…a bit of experience
of dealing with things in a different way.” (DJ Z)
The participants in the focus groups were able to point to examples of different approaches
and outcomes between judges in their local courts.
The focus groups expressed concern that similar cases led to different outcomes in different
courts. The quantitative data from this study indicates that there are, indeed, variations
between the four courts in this sample, both in terms of outcomes granted in similar cases
and the likelihood that claimants will obtain the orders which they seek. Various possible
explanations for this have been explored: differences between courts in levels of arrears; the
familiarity which claimants have with their local district judge, leading to a tailoring of orders
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