Cornerstone Trio in Supreme Court Triple Whammy

01 Jan 2018

Housing, Public Law and Judicial Review

In the three appeals of Johnson v Solihull, Hotak v Southwark and Kanu v Southwark, the homeless applicants challenge the Pereira test of vulnerability. The appeals have been listed before the Supreme Court on 15-17 December.

Crisis and Shelter are national homelessness charities. Their campaigning was instrumental in the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977 becoming law. The 1977 Act imposed the duty to house homeless people on housing authorities for the first time.

Shelter and Crisis are very concerned that the current application of the Pereira test leads to many vulnerable homeless people not being assisted by housing authorities. The Supreme Court granted permission for them to intervene on 17 November 2014.

The intervention brings Cornerstone’s representation in these appeals up to six: Kelvin Rutledge QC, Ashley Underwood QC and Catherine Rowlands have been instructed to act for Solihull and Southwark.

Matt Hutchings and Jennifer Oscroft recently represented the successful local authorities in the cases of CN and ZH [2014] UKSC 62.