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

Chapter 6: Judges and tenants
Introduction
In this chapter we examine the value judges placed on the attendance of tenants and the
impact of the individual circumstances of the tenant. Analysis of the transcripts of interviews
with judges combined with findings from the survey of court cases revealed that there were a
number of cross cutting themes associated with judges’ relationships with tenants which
impacted on decision-making in a diverse range of ways. This section explores the impact
of these themes under the following headings:
Attendance/non attendance
Level of arrears and tenants’ efforts to deal with the problem
Family makeup and recognition of house as home
Language difficulties
Issues around infirmity, health and age of defendant
Judges are human too – personal reactions to hearings.
Attendance
Earlier studies have shown that participation by defendants and in particular their attendance
at the court hearing has a decisive impact on outcomes (Nixon et al 1996). The survey of
court cases confirms that attendance matters. In practice just less than half of all defendants
(45%) participated in the judicial process with 42% attending the hearing in person. In these
cases the profile of outcomes was found to be more favourable to tenants as compared with
the outcomes achieved when the tenant did not attend (see further Chapter 3). Further
evidence of the importance of attendance was provided by the claimant and defendant focus
groups with the majority of participants citing attendance as the single most important
influence on judges. Participants in all focus groups felt that the defendant’s attendance was
a key influence on the outcome, leading to district judges being then more willing to exercise
their discretion in the tenant’s favour. Both claimant and defendant representatives agreed
that if the tenant did not attend, then the claimant would be more likely to obtain the order
they requested.
In interviews with judges we sought to establish why attendance by the defendant was
considered to be so important. No single or consistent explanation was provided; rather we
found there to be a wide range of different reasons why judges thought the attendance or
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