Harrison v Commissioner of Corrective Services

The problem which arises today, and which has arisen really over the past two months, is that in December 2025, the defendant made a further decision, lowering the plaintiff's security classification. The plaintiff still does not accept that decision and wishes to challenge it.

However, it must be that the effect of the new decision made in December 2025 is to render the earlier decision which the plaintiff seeks to challenge of no effect. Obviously, there is no point challenging a decision which is no longer operative, albeit the plaintiff maintains that he wishes to in some way challenge the basis of the earlier decision or some of the findings of fact.

The plaintiff has obtained a grant from Legal Aid for the purposes of obtaining advice as to the merits of the 2025 decision, and presumably advice on his prospects of success in proceedings which he wishes to pursue in this Court. Unfortunately, he has been unable to obtain that advice from senior counsel (he informs me that Simeon Beckett SC is willing to provide the advice). He says the reason he has been unable to obtain the advice to date is that Mr Beckett requires further information or documents setting out the reasons for what I will call the 2025 decision.

He says the defendant has not provided him with those documents, or more specifically that statement of reasons.

I asked Mr Birch whether these documents will be provided but he indicated that there was no requirement to produce such a statement of reasons under the relevant legislation, and that in those circumstances he has no instructions as to whether it will be provided.

I asked Mr Birch whether, in circumstances in which even the plaintiff seemed to accept that the hearing with the summons as currently pleaded cannot go on, the summons should be dismissed. He again informed me that the defendant was not seeking that. It has not filed a motion. It had concerns about procedural fairness being given to the plaintiff.

As such, the position is that, a month before the hearing, the plaintiff is indicating that he wants to amend the summons and is seeking legal advice as to that amendment. The defendant is not seeking any orders other than confirmation of the hearing date.

This does seem to be a rather unsatisfactory position in circumstances in which the summons must be amended to reflect the current state of the plaintiff's designation in prison. However, in circumstances in which neither party is actually making any application today, and neither party seeks to have the proceedings dismissed, I am left with little alternative but to confirm the hearing date of 21 July 2026.

Having said that, unless something happens between now and 21 July the result seems inevitable. The plaintiff says that he did provide the defendant with the proposed amended summons last night. Mr Birch agrees although again says that there are real problems with that document.

I am not prepared to merely leave it to the trial judge on 21 July to deal with the matter. I will stand this matter over again for directions before me at 9.30am on 13 July 2026.

Therefore, I make the following orders:

Confirm hearing date of 21 July 2026.

Stand matter over for further directions at 9:30am on 13 July 2026.