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	England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions >> Holmes & Ors, R (on the application of) v General Medical Council & Ors [2001] EWCA Civ 1372 (20 July 2001) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2001/1372.html Cite as: [2001] EWCA Civ 1372

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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
(Administrative Court)

		The Royal Courts of Justice The Strand London WC2A Friday 20 July 2001

Friday 20 July 2001

1. LORD JUSTICE SIMON BROWN: This seems to me to be a case in which permission to appeal should be granted. The essential basis upon which I understand the judge below to have quashed the decision of the Preliminary Proceeding Committee ("the PPC") of 9 September 1999 was because of the letter from the General Medical Council ("the GMC") to the claimant's solicitors dated 30 September 1999, the next to last paragraph of which could be thought to suggest that a doctor is not properly to be regarded as guilty of serious professional misconduct unless the conduct complained of would justify the permanent revocation of his licence to practice.
2. That, of course, is very far from the true position: a finding of serious professional misconduct may attract a variety of lesser penalties, such as temporary suspension or practice subject to fresh conditions of registration, or perhaps merely a reprimand. Is it really to be thought that all, or indeed any significant number, of the seven or so members of the PPC, mostly doctors, who reached this decision, sitting as they were with a well-qualified legal assessor, were labouring under so fundamental and absurd a misappreciation of the true position as the letter from the case-worker might appear to suggest? That forensic rhetorical question may perhaps be thought to embody the strength of the applicant's case.
3. I note what the judge below says in paragraph 54 of his judgment but, with the best will in the world, it seems to me that the contrary is at least properly, and perhaps strongly, arguable. Nor does paragraph 55 of the judgment appear to me to present a necessarily fatal obstacle to the applicant's success. It may be thought one thing for the GMC to have contemplated that this PPC made the same sort of mistake as to the correct approach to their task as was identified in the cases of Toth [2000] 1 WLR 2209 and Richards [2001] QBD 47 (that, however, is not here contended, or at least was not the basis for the decision below); quite another thing to suppose that the GMC thought that the PPC were in reality adopting the quite remarkable approach apparently suggested by the case-worker's letter.
4. Of course the appeal may fail. It has, however, in my view, at least a realistic prospect of success and, accordingly, it should be permitted to go ahead.
5. As footnote I add only that Miss O'Rourke very wisely has abandoned any thought of appealing simply against the order for costs below.
6. LORD JUSTICE TUCKEY: I agree.
ORDER: Application allowed. Costs in the appeal. (Order not part of approved judgment)