The Issue
The court's duty of active case management requires it to identify issues early, decide which need trial, and control the order in which issues are resolved. Threshold issues — including title to sue, deed validity, escrow release, receiver authority, and fraud — must be sequenced before enforcement consequences are permitted to proceed.
The Law: How It Should Operate
CPR 1.4 — the court must actively manage cases including identifying the issues at an early stage and deciding the order in which issues are to be resolved. Where anterior issues go to the lawfulness of enforcement, those issues must be determined before enforcement consequences are treated as established.
How It Operated in Lawrence v HNW
Threshold issues were not sequenced for trial before enforcement consequences followed. Title, deed validity, escrow release, receiver authority and fraud were left unresolved while possession, sale and registration consequences proceeded as if they had been determined. The enforcement tail preceded the adjudication dog.
"The question is not whether one court reached one adverse result. It is that the same failure of protection recurred across courts, tribunals, administration, policing and oversight, making the pattern visible only because the case passed through so many forums."
— Open Letter to the Lord Chancellor, May 2026