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

Judges are human too - personal reactions to hearings
“These [warrant suspensions] are the hardest applications, you know. Forget all your
complicated civil procedures and your trials and everything else. Kicking somebody
out of their house is such a major thing.” (DJ D)
As the above quote illustrates many judges were cognisant of the practical and emotional
consequences of the decisions they made in possession cases. It was not uncommon for
interviewees to reflect on their sense of personal responsibility evoked by adjudicating in
possession proceedings. They were however, aware of the need to balance their emotional
responses with their judicial role, as one judge explained:
“Sometimes you have sympathy even when you make the order, even when you
refuse the application to suspend, but you know judges’ decisions can’t be based on
sympathy, you know it’s the justice of the case between the parties…but it doesn’t
mean that we’re unfeeling so-and-so’s.” (DJ N)
In this context it was not uncommon for judges to explain their decisions in terms of giving
the defendant “one last chance”. Providing the tenant with a last opportunity to stay in their
home was linked for many judges with a responsibility to impress on the tenant the need to
adhere to the terms of the order. A number of judges said they frequently wrote “last
chance” in large letters on the case file and then delivered a short lecture to the tenants
explaining that if they defaulted on the terms of the order they would be evicted. One judge
graphically explained how he approached the task of ensuring that defendants were clear
about the terms of an order, in terms of play acting:
“It may sound cruel, that’s the way I happen to feel that I can get people to
realise…and this is why I would say it, I would write ‘last chance’. I will play, if you
like, hard and fast with their emotions, because hopefully they’re going to go out of
the room feeling really scared, and remember what that feeling in the pit of the
stomach is like to think that they were about to lose their property, in the hope that
they will remind themselves of that.” (DJ D)
Others also talked about having a set pattern or routine way of trying to emphasise to
defendants the need to repay outstanding rent:
“The temptation here is to get a bit pompous and say to yourself, these tenants need
teaching a lesson that the rent is to be paid weekly, monthly or whatever it is and not
as and when they get round to it, which is generally a few days before the issue of a
warrant, or a few days after the issue of proceedings or whatever it may be.” (DJ W)
A number of judges commented on the gravity of possession proceedings and reflected on
the human dilemma involved in depriving someone of their home as the following comment
illustrates:
“At the end of the day you’re talking about somebody’s home. There’s nothing more
fundamental, it seems to me, apart from taking time to take someone’s children
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