''Morgan v Simpson''

975 Year 975 ( CMLXXV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Arab–Byzantine War: Emperor John I raids Mesopotamia and invades Syria, using ...

QB 151 is a

UK constitutional law The United Kingdom constitutional law concerns the governance of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. With the oldest continuous political system on Earth, the British constitution is not contained in a single code but princ ...

case, concerning the

right to vote Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...

and the integrity of votes and elections in the

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Facts

Gladys Morgan and four voters in the 1973 election for the Greater London Council petitioned that the election for the seat of Croydon North East was invalid as 44 unstamped ballot papers were not counted. At 18 polling stations, official counters had inadvertently not stamped papers with the official marks. The Labour candidate declared ‘duly elected’, David Simpson, had a majority of only 11, and if the uncounted papers were included, Morgan (the Conservative candidate, and an incumbent) would have won instead by 7 votes. They claimed there was an ‘act or omission’ in breach of an officer’s official duty, and that it affected the result under section 37 of the Representation of the People Act 1949. The Divisional Court held the election was conducted ‘substantially in accordance with the law as to elections’ and the fact that small errors affected the result was not enough. Morgan appealed.

Anthony Scrivener Anthony Frank Scrivener QC (31 July 1935 – 27 March 2015) was a British barrister. His high profile clients led him to becoming one of the highest paid barristers in the UK, commanding the first £1 million brief. He spent a period as chair of t ...

appeared for the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Judgment

The Court of Appeal declared the election invalid, because the result would have been affected. On the proper construction of the

Representation of the People Act 1949 The Representation of the People Act 1949 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Act consolidated previous electoral law, but also made some changes to administration. Representation of the People amendments followed in 1969, 19 ...

section 37(1), any breach of local election rules was enough to compel the court to declare the election void.

Lord Denning MR Alfred Thompson "Tom" Denning, Baron Denning (23 January 1899 – 5 March 1999) was an English lawyer and judge. He was called to the bar of England and Wales in 1923 and became a King's Counsel in 1938. Denning became a judge in 1944 when ...

said the following: Stephenson LJ concurred and said the following in conclusion:

Lawton LJ Sir Frederick Horace Lawton (21 December 1911 – 3 February 2001) was a British barrister and judge who served as Lord Justice of Appeal from 1972 to 1986. Early life and career Frederick Lawton was born in Wandsworth, London, the son of Wi ...

gave a concurring opinion, and said the following:

Notes

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References

*AW Bradley, KD Ewing and CJS Knight, ''Constitutional and Administrative Law'' (16th edn 2015) 164 United Kingdom constitutional case law