Legally speaking

Ever wondered what might be the difference between ‘apparent authority’ and ‘actual authority’? Guessed not. But the legal beagles at Calamity Hall have recently had a painful lesson in the distinction following a judgement on The City & Council of Swansea v Christine Joyce (and others) .

According to Nearlylegal.co.uk, the case is “an example of a post Doherty public law defence at first hearing, and one that succeeded where an alternative defence of estoppel didn’t”; something which should be blatantly obvious to everyone. OK, well maybe not.
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But even if we mortals only understand one word in eight, it’s a reasonable expectation that it would make sense to legal professionals in Swansea Council - especially when an attempted court action on their part to remove a traveller’s site is argued beforehand by the defence to be unreasonable, irrational and un-authorised and the court pretty much agrees. You would also expect those pushing the action to know that a cabinet member had given informal permission for families to stay on part of the site – hence the ‘apparent authority’ reference.

We understand that this particular failure has been added to a dossier compiled by a group of councillors with a serious beef about abilities within the legal department. The same group is also trying to ensure that what was going around is now coming around by reporting a senior bod to the chief executive & professional bodies about allegedly questionable company returns made on behalf of the Council. Happy Days, eh?