Ethics Investigation in UK Law

The role of the Court when a case is referred is to consider whether the disciplinary tribunal has properly performed that task so as to reach a correct decision as to the imposition of a penalty. The test of undue leniency in this context must, we think, involve considering whether, having regard to the material facts, the decision reached has due regard for the safety of the public and the reputation of the profession.

To use the language of the criminal law, the Court would have to examine whether the conviction should have been on a totally different basis.

The decision of the PCC, on the information before it, might be perfectly justifiable but, in the light of the true facts, not merely inappropriate but clearly wrong. If desirable for the protection of the public, there would be every reason to justify re-opening it without in any way impugning the actual decision of the PCC.

The consequence of Mr. Robinson's submission—a consequence which he readily accepted—is that a doctor might be placed in the position of having to plead both guilty and not guilty to the same charge; guilty in respect of the facts relating to one patient, not guilty in respect of the facts relating to another. The same difficulty would face the Committee when coming to make their findings. But at the conclusion of the judgment delivered by Lord Griffiths there appears this paragraph:

The 1988 Practice Rules require the Committee to reach a view as a committee on the matters which they have before them for determination. In these circumstances it is not to be expected of the Committee that they should give detailed reasons for their findings of fact. A general explanation of the basis for their determination on the questions of serious professional misconduct and of penalty will be sufficient in most cases.

It was plain however from the outset that their decision on this point was going to depend upon inferences which it was open to them to make from agreed facts and on the Committee's assessment of the appellant's credibility. The issue was a relatively simple one, and all the appellant needed to know in order to decide what to do next was the decision which the Committee had reached upon it.

There was undoubted negligence but something more was required to constitute serious professional misconduct and to attach the stigma of such a finding to a doctor of some 25 years standing with an hitherto unblemished career. Their Lordships are left with a profound sense of unease and are far from satisfied that if properly advised the PCC would inevitably have arrived at the same conclusion.