High Court Judgment Template

likely to be reliable if there is no assumption that the newcomer affected by the injunction is a person so regardless of the law that they will commit a breach of it, even if the grant necessarily assumes a real risk that they (or a significant number of them) would, but for the injunction, invade the claimant’s rights, or the rights (including the planning regime) of those for whose protection the claimant local authority seeks the injunction. That is the essence of the justification for such an injunction. 142. Recognition that injunctions against newcomers are in substance always a type of without notice injunction, whether in form interim or final, is in our view the starting point in a reliable assessment of the question whether they should be made at all and, if so, by reference to what principles and subject to what safeguards. Viewed in that way they then need to be set against the established categories of injunction to see whether they fall into an existing legitimate class, or, if not, whether they display features by reference to which they may be regarded as a legitimate extension of the court’s practice.

143. The distinguishing features of an injunction against newcomers are in our view as follows:

(i) They are made against persons who are truly unknowable at the time of the grant, rather than (like Lord Sumption’s class 1 in Cameron ) identifiable persons whose names are not known. They therefore apply potentially to anyone in the world. They are always made, as against newcomers, on a without notice basis (see para 139 above). However, as we explain below, informal notice of the application for such an injunction may nevertheless be given by advertisement. (ii) (iii) In the context of Travellers and Gypsies they are made in cases where the persons restrained are unlikely to have any right or liberty to do that which is prohibited by the order, save perhaps Convention rights to be weighed in a proportionality balance. The conduct restrained is typically either a plain trespass or a plain breach of planning control, or both. Accordingly, although there are exceptions, these injunctions are generally made in proceedings where there is unlikely to be a real dispute to be resolved, or triable issue of fact or law about the claimant’s entitlement, even though the injunction sought is of course always discretionary. They and (iv) the proceedings in which they are made are generally more a form of enforcement of undisputed rights than a form of dispute resolution.

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