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CPR 32.14 provides as follows :-
"(1)
Proceedings for contempt of court may be brought against a person if he makes, or
causes to be made, a false statement in a document verified by a statement of truth
without an honest belief in its truth.
(2)
Proceedings under this rule may be brought only—
(a)
by the Attorney General; or
(b)
with the permission of the court."
Some respondents
thought that a heavy costs sanction might be sufficient. For the
reasons which follow, and subject to a proposed modification to the rule (dealt with
below), the Working Party's view is that contempt proceedings ought in principle to
be available as a sanction for flagrant cases, with costs and other procedural sanctions
being the more usual and proportionate response to most cases of inappropriate
verification.
Not every inappropriate verification is a contempt - modification of the rule
It is important to note that while the CPR 32.14 envisages contempt proceedings as a
possibility where someone verifies pleaded allegations without believing them to be
true, the rule does not (and cannot) create a new instance of contempt. As Sir Richard
Scott V-C (as he then was) pointed out in Malgar Ltd v RE Leach (Engineering)
Ltd
:-
"It is not open to Rules of Court to introduce a new category of contempt, and CPR 32.14
does not do that. It provides for the possibility of a person being prosecuted for contempt if
he makes or causes to be made a false statement, etc., but it does not predict what the
outcome of the prosecution will be. That is a matter which must be left to the general law."
Notes
Including the Bar Association.
The Times, 17 February 2000.
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