Veterinary Profession in UK Law

The correctness of veterinary certificates is also a matter of importance, and can in some contexts bear on animal and indeed human health. The RCVS's Guide to Professional Conduct (2002 edition) underlines the obvious need for truthfulness and accuracy, in the interests of both clients and third parties. Deterrence is an important consideration, but it must be deterrence in the light of the particular circumstances of the offence to which any deterrent sanction is directed.

In my view, these statements show clearly that academic issues cannot and should not be determined by courts unless there are exceptional circumstances such as where two conditions are satisfied in the type of application now before the court.

Thus both the College and the practitioner may adduce evidence about the underlying facts upon which the conviction is based, provided that the facts which such evidence is relevant to prove are not inconsistent with the finding that the respondent was guilty of the offence. What the practitioner cannot do is to relitigate the conviction before the Committee.

Some expressions in common use in documents dealing with legalrights or obligations acquire in a legal context a special meaning different from, or more precise than, their meaning in common speech — they become "terms of art". Again, the habit of a legal draft scan is to eschew synonyms. He uses the same words throughout the document to express the same thing or concept, and consequently if he uses different words the presumption is that A he means a different thing or concept.

We consider that Neurim's arguments are not only tenable: in our view they are right. Many kinds of valuable pharmaceutical research will not get the encouragement or reward they deserve if they are not. Pharmaceutical research is not confined to looking for new active compounds. New formulations of old active substances are often sought. Most are unpatentable but from time to time a real invention is made and patented.

Section 16 (1)(a) of the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966 provides that if a registered veterinary surgeon is convicted in the United Kingdom or elsewhere of a criminal offence which, in the opinion of the Disciplinary Committee, renders him unfit to practise veterinary surgery, the Committee may, if they think fit, direct that his name shall be removed from the register.