The BMA sought to challenge the validity of the rules governing the procedure of Fitness to Practice panels. In particular the BMA challenged the new absence of a requirement that the panel’s legal advice and assistance be available to the parties.
Held: The claim failed: ‘I am wholly unconvinced that a legally qualified chair has two discrete and distinct functions subject to different criteria of conduct, so that, when he advises his fellow panel members, the jurisprudence that has built up around assessors applies.’
Although not formally judicial bodies, GMC disciplinary panels – FPPs and IOPs, and their predecessors or successors – exercise a judicial function, in respect of which the requirement for a fair hearing is protected by both article 6 of the ECHR and the common law.
Where a legal member of a tribunal expresses a view on the law to other members, he can properly be described as ‘advising’ those other members, without engaging the jurisprudence of legal assessors, because the member is a full member of the tribunal who participates fully in the decision-making process and thus attracting all of the jurisprudence that attaches to judges and other legal members who exercise full judicial function within a mixed tribunal.
Hickinbottom J
[2016] EWHC 1015 (Admin), [2016] 4 WLR 89, [2016] WLR(D) 237
Bailii, WLRD
Medical Act 1983, General Medical Council (Fitness to Practise and Over-arching Objective) and the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care (References to Court) Order 2015
England and Wales
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 – Nwabueze v General Medical Council PC 6-Apr-2000
Deliberations of the professional conduct committee hearing a case of professional conduct were in the presence of an assessor who gave advice to the committee. After returning from deliberation the assessor described the advice given, and the . .
Cited – Le Compte, Van Leuven And De Meyere v Belgium ECHR 18-Oct-1982
Even where ‘jurisdictional organs of professional associations’ are set up: ‘Nonetheless, in such circumstances the Convention calls at least for one of the two following systems: either the jurisdictional organs themselves comply with the . .
Cited – Clark (Procurator Fiscal, Kirkcaldy) v Kelly PC 11-Feb-2003
PC (The High Court of Justiciary) The minuter challenged the role of the legal adviser to the district courts in Scotland, and as to his independence.
Held: The legal adviser was not subject to the same . .
Cited – Chien Sing-Shou v The Building Authority PC 12-Jun-1967
(Hong Kong) The Board considered the Hong Kong Architects’ Disciplinary Board which, by section 5 of the Buildings Ordinance 1955, comprised five members: three architects, the Building Authority or his representative, and ‘a legal adviser’. The . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Health Professions, Human Rights, Natural Justice
Updated: 09 November 2021; Ref: scu.563227