Ghost lawyers (Mazur) and ghost courts (Geddes)
Attribution, authority, and the limits of legal convenience in English law
Readers have drawn my attention to a case parallel to my own that concerns what might be termed “ghost lawyers” rather than “ghost courts”. The comparison is instructive. It demonstrates that the issues I raise around attribution and authority in the legal system are not idiosyncratic, isolated, or quixotic, but reflect a broader structural tension in which administrative convenience and functional attribution risk overtaking constitutional rigour. The case in question, Mazur v Charles Russell Speechlys LLP, is listed for hearing in the Court of Appeal in February and is therefore proceeding at appellate level.
The resulting article contrasting “ghost lawyers” and “ghost courts” was developed through a structured series of analytical dialogues between myself and two large language models (ChatGPT and Grok), used strictly as iterative reasoning tools rather than as sources of authority. Draft propositions were tested against orthodox English public law, refined to eliminate over-claim, and stress-tested for doctrinal coherence, neutrality, and judicial intelligibility. All analysis, framing, and conclusions are my own; nothing in this article constitutes legal advice.
References in this article to “Geddes” do not denote a single reported decision. They are used as shorthand for a family of live or emerging jurisdictional issues and challenges relating to the traceability of judicial authority and the lawful constitution of tribunals, arising across a Judicial Review, a Part 8 claim, and potential future proceedings, whether brought by me or by others who may follow similar lines of argument. The purpose of the analysis is elucidatory rather than advocative.
While the cases discussed arise within the jurisdiction of England and Wales, the underlying principles — legality, authority, attribution, and constitutional traceability — are shared by all common-law systems.
1. Introduction: the attribution puzzle in English law
English law repeatedly encounters a deceptively simple question: when may the acts of one person or body derive legal validity from association with another? The question arises across doctrinal domains, from professional regulation to constitutional public law, and its resolution often turns not on outcomes, but on the source of authority.
Two contemporary issues bring this problem into sharp focus:
The first, Mazur v Charles Russell Speechlys LLP, concerns whether reserved legal activities performed by unauthorised individuals may nonetheless be treated as legally effective through attribution to an authorised firm under the Legal Services Act 2007.
The second concerns a class of challenges—referred to here as “Geddes-type” issues—questioning whether coercive judicial process may lawfully issue in the name of a tribunal whose legal identity or jurisdictional vesting cannot be traced to positive law, with validity instead asserted through administrative practice or inference.
At a high level, both issues involve attribution without direct authority. At a deeper level, they occupy very different constitutional terrain. This article explains each issue in isolation, compares their structural logic, and then identifies the doctrinal boundary that prevents regulatory pragmatism from migrating into questions of judicial existence and jurisdiction.
2. The Mazur issue: authority in reserved legal activities
Mazur v Charles Russell Speechlys LLP arises under the Legal Services Act 2007, which establishes a statutory framework governing “reserved legal activities,” including the conduct of litigation. Sections 12–14 of the Act require that such activities be performed by individuals who are personally authorised, or by authorised persons acting through appropriately regulated entities.
The legal question in Mazur is not whether the work was competently performed, nor whether the firm itself was authorised. It is whether personal statutory authorisation is an indispensable precondition, or whether authority may be functionally attributed where the work is carried out within an authorised organisational structure, subject to supervision.
This is a question of statutory construction within a regulatory scheme. The Act is capable of being read strictly—requiring direct personal authorisation—or functionally—tolerating attribution in the interests of efficiency, consumer protection, and market reality. Either approach remains internal to a framework deliberately designed by Parliament to regulate professional risk and accountability.
Crucially, Mazur concerns private law regulation. The consequences of error, the available remedies, and the scope for pragmatic accommodation are calibrated accordingly.
3. The Geddes issue: traceable authority in judicial tribunals
A fundamentally different problem arises where coercive judicial power is exercised.
Under Article 6(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights, any tribunal exercising judicial functions must be “established by law.” Domestically, this requirement is reflected in orthodox public law principles: courts and tribunals must derive their existence, identity, and jurisdiction from positive legal instruments, not from assumption, convenience, or administrative habit.
In England and Wales, magistrates’ courts are continued and constituted under the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980 (ss.1–3), with territorial arrangements historically structured through Local Justice Areas designated by statutory instruments under the Courts Act 2003 s.8. Subject-matter jurisdiction is vested by specific enabling statutes. Administrative practice supports this framework; it does not replace it.
What are referred to here as ‘Geddes-type’ challenges arise where judicial process is issued in the name of a purported tribunal whose legal identity or jurisdictional basis cannot be objectively traced to such instruments, and where validity is instead asserted by inference (“everyone knows which court was meant”) or by reference to long-standing administrative practice. These challenges are orthodox in form: they invoke ultra vires principles, the rule of law, and Article 6’s requirement of sufficient ex ante ascertainability.
They are not concerned with minor procedural irregularities, but with the antecedent question of authority itself.
4. Structural parallels: attribution without direct authority
At an abstract level, both Mazur and Geddes-type issues involve the same structural move: the imputation of legal validity to acts performed by an unauthorised actor, by reference to a wider lawful structure.
In Mazur, the proposed principal is an authorised law firm.
In Geddes-type cases, the proposed principal is the justice system itself.
This parallel is analytically illuminating. It explains why arguments framed in terms of “functionality,” “common sense,” or “systemic efficiency” arise in both contexts. It also explains why such arguments can initially appear persuasive.
But the parallel is illustrative, not transferable.
5. Doctrinal divergence: regulatory flexibility and constitutional rigour
The point of divergence lies in constitutional principle.
Regulatory schemes such as the Legal Services Act 2007 are designed to balance compliance with practicality. They permit, and sometimes require, courts to tolerate functional attribution where statutory purpose is served and harm avoided.
By contrast, judicial authority occupies a distinct constitutional category. Three principles form a doctrinal firewall:
The principle of legality: coercive power must be clearly authorised by law, not inferred (Entick v Carrington (1765)).
Article 6 ECHR: tribunals must be established by law in a manner that is accessible and foreseeable ex ante (Coëme v Belgium (2000)).
Separation of powers: courts may interpret jurisdiction, but may not create or reconstruct it.
While English law tolerates limited ambiguity in the exercise of vested powers, it does not permit approximation as to whether such power exists at all. Functional attribution in regulatory contexts therefore cannot migrate into questions of tribunal existence or jurisdiction.
6. Judicial reasoning: formalism, pragmatism, and remedies
Courts are not blind to institutional consequences. Where defects are identified, they often manage impact through remedial discretion—prospective declarations, stays, or tailored relief under the Senior Courts Act 1981 s.31.
But this pragmatism operates after legality is assessed. It does not relax the threshold question. As Anisminic makes clear, acts performed without jurisdiction are nullities as a matter of law; the only question is how the consequences are managed.
This distinction—between legality and remedy—is central to understanding why Geddes-type issues cannot be resolved by appeals to convenience alone.
7. Implications: what these issues clarify
Taken together, Mazur and Geddes-type challenges illuminate the limits of attribution in English law.
Mazur tests how far Parliament intended regulatory flexibility to extend within a professional scheme. Geddes-type issues test how firmly English law insists on traceability when coercive state power is exercised.
The comparison clarifies that while English law can accommodate flexibility, it prioritises traceability over assumption in coercive contexts. That priority is not ideological; it is constitutional.
Conclusion: ghost lawyers, ghost courts, and the boundary of attribution
The comparison between Mazur and Geddes-type issues ultimately illuminates a single, central question in English law: how far legal validity may be attributed where direct authority is absent.
In Mazur, the law is asked whether Parliament has permitted the acts of unauthorised individuals to acquire legal effect through attribution to an authorised professional entity. That question arises within a regulatory scheme designed to manage competence, risk, and consumer protection. The authority in issue is professional, derivative, and voluntary. It is therefore capable—depending on statutory construction—of accommodating a degree of functional pragmatism.
Geddes-type issues operate on a different constitutional plane. They concern whether coercive judicial power may be exercised in the absence of a demonstrable, traceable legal foundation establishing the tribunal’s existence or jurisdiction. Here, attribution cannot be pragmatic, inferential, or convenience-based. A court either exists in law, or it does not. Jurisdiction either has a positive legal source, or it does not.
This marks the decisive boundary:
A “ghost lawyer” problem asks whether professional authority can be imputed where personal statutory authorisation is lacking.
A “ghost court” problem asks whether state power can be assumed where jurisdiction has not been shown.
English law may tolerate debate about the former, depending on legislative intent. It cannot tolerate the latter without abandoning foundational principles of legality, separation of powers, and the Article 6 requirement that tribunals be established by law.
The distinction explains why functional attribution may be arguable in regulatory contexts, yet must stop at the threshold of adjudication. It is not a matter of policy preference, but of constitutional necessity.
Where the law governs professions, it may balance form and function. Where it governs liberty, obligation, and judgment, it demands proof.
“Ghost lawyers” test the limits of regulation.
“Ghost courts” test the limits of the rule of law.
English law draws that line deliberately.