The financial position of a successful litigant is not, absent exceptional circumstances, a relevant consideration in the exercise of the costs discretion. Where a statutory body performing quasi-judicial functions appears at an appeal to assist the court rather than as a protagonist, and its original decision was correct on the material before it but reversed on fresh evidence, costs should ordinarily lie where they fall. The decision in [name withheld] v Board of Examiners, which refused costs to a successful Board solely on the ground of the appellant's impecuniosity, is not supported by authority or principle.
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