PC (General Medical Council) The appellant a consultant physician appealed against a finding of serious professional misconduct. He had had sexual relations with a patient, and offered to pay a sum for her silence. The Board was aksed to consider its jurisdiction in appeals from the disciplinary committee of the GMC.
Held: The Board set out four general general propositions supporting their decision to reject the appeal. Lord Hailsham: ‘(1) The appeal lies of right by the statute and the terms of statute do not limit or qualify the appeal in any way, so that the appellant is entitled to claim that it is in a general sense nothing less than a rehearing of his case and a review of the decision. See Per Lord Radcliffe in Fox v General Medical Council ([1960] 3 All ER at 226, [1960] 1 WLR at 1020).
(2) Notwithstanding the generality of the above language, the actual exercise of the jurisdiction is severely limited by the circumstances in which it can be invoked. The appeal is not by way of re-hearing in the sense that the witnesses are heard afresh or the evidence gone over again (see per Lord Radcliffe). This, amongst other things, means that there is a heavy burden on an appellant who wishes to displace a verdict on the grounds that the evidence alone makes the decision unsatisfactory.
(3) Beyond a bare statement of its findings of fact, the disciplinary committee does not in general give reasons for its decision as in the case of a trial in the High Court by judge alone from which an appeal by way of rehearing lies to the Court of Appeal (see per Lord Radcliffe ([1960] 3 All ER at 227, 229, [1960] 1 WLR at 1021, 1023)). It follows from this that the only circumstances in which an appellate court can reverse a view of the facts taken by the disciplinary committee would be a case where, on examination, it would appear that the committee had misread the evidence to such an extent that they were not entitled to make a finding in the state of the evidence presented before them.
(4) The legal assessor who assists the committee at its hearing is not a judge, and his advice to the committee is not a summing up, and no analogy with a criminal appeal against a conviction before a judge and jury can properly be drawn. The legal assessor simply advises the committee in camera on points of law and reports his advice in open court after he has given it. The committee under its president are masters both of law and of the facts and what might amount to misdirection in law by a judge to a jury at a criminal trial does not necessarily invalidate the committee’s decision. Where a criticism is made of the legal adviser’s account of his advice the question is whether it can fairly be thought to have been of sufficient significance to the result to invalidate the decision. See Fox v General Medical Council and per Lord Guest in Sivarajah v General Medical Council ([1964] 1 All ER at 507, [1964] 1 WLR at 116, 117).’
Judges:
Lord Hailsham
Citations:
[1971] UKPC 1, [1971] UKPC 33, [1972] AC 217
Links:
Citing:
Cited – Fox v General Medical Council PC 1960
The appeal by a doctor from the disciplinary committee of the GMC to the board of the Privy Council lies of right by the statute and the terms of statute do not limit or qualify the appeal in any way, so that the appellant is entitled to claim that . .
Cited – Bhattacharya v General Medical Council PC 1967
The Board rejected an argument that the disciplinary committee of the GMC were wrong in principle to find the appellant guilty of infamous conduct in a professional respect where he contended that the doctor’s intimate relationship began before the . .
Cited – Sivarajah v General Medical Council PC 1964
The board considered the duty of the legal advisor to the disciplinary committee of the General Medical Council: ‘The legal assessor is, however, in no sense in the position of a judge summing up to a jury, nor is the committee’s function analogous . .
Cited – Felix v General Dental Council PC 1960
A restricted meaning should be given to the phrase ‘infamous conduct in a professional respect’ by adding the qualifier that the conduct must be of such a kind as is ‘deserving the strongest reprobation’ and ‘so heinous as to merit . . the extreme . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Health Professions
Updated: 31 May 2022; Ref: scu.159147