Page 520 - Magistrates Conference 2019

WHAT IS ABUSE OF PROCESS?

• The Court has an overriding duty to ensure that justice is

done and an inherent power arising from that duty to stay or

stop any proceedings where it reasonably believes that

should the prosecution of the case be allowed to continue, it

would constitute an abuse of the court’s process.

per Lord Lowry in Hui Chi-ming v R [1991] UKPC 29:

“something so unfair and wrong that the court should

not allow a prosecutor to proceed with what is in all

respects a regular proceeding.”