The appeal by way of case stated in the ‘Twitter joke trial’ case (Chambers v DPP) was heard on 8 February and judgment was reserved. Now, nearly four months later, the Judicial Office has announced that: “Lord Justice Gross has ordered adjournment of case to be heard before constitution of three judges”. In other words, there will be a re-hearing of the appeal (not, contrary to some newspaper reports, of the original trial).
As Paul Chambers’ solicitor David Allen Green explains on his New Stateman blog, this is because the two judges who heard the case have been unable to agree. A split of this kind is highly unusual – the most recent example that we are aware of is the case of Sheldrake v DPP [2003] in October 2002 where Latham LJ and McCombe J were unable to agree and directed a hearing before a three-judge court which took place 4 months later before Clarke LJ and Henriques and Jack JJ who reached a 2:1 decision (which was itself subsequently overturned by the House of Lords).
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