No appearances, the Court acted of its own motion. Jack, J [Ag. Stephen Grayson appeared for the defendant. I made the order sought. I initialled the draft order that same day and indicated my approval of it. After the heading of the draft order, it recited:. Subsequently Travers Thorp Alberga submitted the requisite number of engrossed copies of the order to the Registry for sealing. These orders read:. The learned deputy registrar, Ms. Once Travers Thorp Alberga noticed the error in the engrossed order, it asked the deputy registrar to reissue the order with the date of its making amended.
For reasons which are unclear to me, it did not want the order to be expressed to be made under the slip rule, CPR The deputy registrar was concerned that this would be a breach of the rule that an order cannot be amended after it has been sealed, except under the slip rule. The Judge's approved order which I attach was correct in all aspects so an application shouldn't and can't be made to him to correct something he actually didn't do.
The error was in not crossing out to replace it with His order clearly states I see that the correction was made by you in ink on the second line but not the first. Spann referred the matter to me. In my judgment, she was quite correct to do so. The rule that a perfected order cannot be changed save under the slip rule is a key requirement for the preservation of the integrity of the Court record.
Indeed it might be described as sacrosanct. It has long been the law that a judge is entitled to reverse his decision at any time before his order is drawn up and perfected. The modern story begins with the Judicature Acts and , 2 which amalgamated the various common law, Chancery and Doctors' Commons jurisdictions into a single High Court and created a new Court of Appeal for England and Wales. In In re St Nazaire Company , 3 the Court of Appeal decided that there was no longer any general power in a judge to review his own or any other judge's orders.
Sir Richard Malins VC had permitted a petition to proceed which sought to vary an earlier order which he had made and which had been unsuccessfully appealed to the Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal held that he had no power to do so. Before they came into force, the Lord Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor and Master of the Rolls had power to rehear their own decisions and, indeed, the decisions of their predecessors.
