Tag Archives: inherent jurisdiction

Magical sparkle powers (repeat to fade)

Posted on October 8, 2018 by suesspiciousminds

The quirky case of Mostyn J and the using magical sparkle powers to place a child in quasi secure accommodation under inherent jurisidiction (child met test for secure but no secure beds) but wait, the child is consenting to their detention, has come up for appeal

Original blog here (and yes, I super simplified the issues in that quick summary)

Magical sparkle powers, secure accommodation and consent

The appeal is here

Re T (A Child) 2018

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2018/2136.html

In the Mostyn J case, the Judge decided that whilst a valid and enduring consent could block the Court’s use of the inherent jurisdiction (and perhaps s25 Secure Accommodation), what he was presented with was not in fact a genuine and enduring consent. The young person had capacity to agree to their detention, but the Judge thought that is was not a consent given with the intent of honouring it (which may be supported by the evidence of said young person escaping from the secure unit shortly afterwards)

The Court of Appeal decided that Mostyn J was wrong, though not for the reason the appeal was brought. The appeal was saying ‘don’t add that ‘enduring’ component to consent’ and the Court of Appeal said that in a secure accommodation or quasi-secure accommodation setting, lack of consent of young person wasn’t required and thus their giving consent did not prevent a Judge making the order or using the inherent jurisdiction.

In effect, Mostyn J had been persuaded that consent was more significant than it in fact was, and it wasn’t necessary to add the gloss that he applied to reach the right outcome.

The technical bits follow in bold, skip if you like – there’s better stuff after that of a wider interest

Discussion: Is a lack of valid consent a pre-requisite to the exercise of the inherent jurisdiction authorising restriction of the liberty of a young person?

Although the point is now conceded for the purposes of this appeal, it is helpful to record brief reasons why the Appellant’s concession on the question of whether a lack of valid consent is a pre-requisite to the exercise of the inherent jurisdiction to restrict liberty was correctly made.
On the basis of the ECtHR and domestic case law, and on the basis of the statutory scheme for secure accommodation in CA 1989, s 25 and SSW(W)A 2014, s 119, it is clear that, whilst a lack of valid consent may be an element in determining whether a person is deprived of their liberty in any given circumstances for the purposes of Art 5, lack of consent is not a jurisdictional requirement either for making a statutory secure accommodation order or for the High Court to exercise its inherent jurisdiction to authorise a local authority to restrict a young person’s liberty. That conclusion is established on the following four bases:

a) The consent, or otherwise, of the young person is not a relevant factor in the statutory scheme;

b) There is no domestic authority to the effect that it is necessary to find an absence of valid consent before the court may authorise a local authority to restrict the liberty of a young person;

c) To hold otherwise would be to confuse the distinct temporal perspectives of Art 5 and an application for authorisation;

d) It would also mistake the purpose of an order under the inherent jurisdiction authorising the placement of a child in the equivalent of secure accommodation.

(a) The statutory scheme does not require lack of consent

The consent, or lack of it, of the young person who is the subject of a secure accommodation application is not a factor to which reference is made in any part of the statutory scheme under CA 1989, s 25 or SWW(W)A 2014, s 119. The statutory scheme has been held to be compatible with, and not in breach of, ECHR Art 5.
The fact that ‘consent’ is not a factor in the statutory scheme, in contrast to the requirements of Art 5 when determining whether there has been a deprivation of liberty as established by the second element of Storck, points up the essential difference between the two processes. Section 25 and s 119 are concerned with the authorisation of the placement of a child in secure accommodation: “… a child … may not be placed … in accommodation … for the purpose of restricting liberty (“secure accommodation”) unless …”. By s 25(2) and s 119(2) regulations may ’empower the court from time to time to authorise a child to be kept in secure accommodation’ for such period as the regulations may specify. Where the statutory criteria in s 25(1) or s 119(1) are satisfied the court ‘shall’ or ‘must’ ‘make an order authorising the child to be kept in secure accommodation’ (s 25(3) and s 119(3)) – see Re M (Secure Accommodation).
The effect of a court order under s 25 or s 119 is, therefore, to ‘authorise’ the applicant local authority to keep the subject child in secure accommodation. The effect of authorisation under s 25 is most clearly demonstrated by s 25(5A) which spells out the effect of a secure accommodation order for a placement in Scotland:

(5A) Where a local authority in England or Wales are authorised under this section to keep a child in secure accommodation in Scotland, the person in charge of the accommodation may restrict the child’s liberty to the extent that the person considers appropriate, having regard to the terms of any order made by a court under this section. [emphasis added]

In contrast to a sentence of imprisonment passed by a criminal court, a local authority is not required to restrict the liberty of a young person who is the subject to a secure accommodation order; s 25 and s 119 do no more than establish a system for the authorisation of such placements. The statutory scheme is therefore focused upon whether or not the factual circumstances are such as to be sufficiently serious to justify restricting liberty.
The welfare of the child, whilst relevant, is not the paramount consideration for a court when determining an application for a s 25 or s 119 order (Re M (Secure Accommodation Order) [1995] 1 FLR 418). The judgment of Butler-Sloss LJ (as she then was) in Re M justifies reading in full, but the reasons supporting her conclusion, with which Hoffmann LJ and Sir Tasker Watkins agreed, included the following:

a) Section 25 sits within Part 3 of CA 1989 which is structured to cast upon the local authority duties and responsibilities for children in its area, including those who are being looked after.

b) The general duty of a local authority under Part 3, which is to safeguard and promote the child’s welfare, is not the same as the duty of a court under CA 1989, s 1 to afford paramount consideration to the child’s welfare.

(b) No domestic authority requires there to be a lack of valid consent

Save possibly for the decision of Keehan J in Local Authority v D to which I will now turn, and, of course, Mostyn J’s decision in the present case, this court has not been taken to any authority for the proposition that a lack of valid consent is a necessary jurisdictional pre-requisite before the High Court may exercise its inherent jurisdiction to authorise restriction of liberty. The role of the High Court, in holding as closely as possible to the scheme of s 25 and s 119 in these cases, is that of determining whether a local authority is to be authorised to restrict liberty.
This court was told that, in the present case, since the making of the order in March, the regime at the second placement has been relaxed so that the appellant now spends over three hours each day of ‘free time’ with the expectation that the amount of free time will increase by 30 minutes each week. The relaxation of the regime was a matter within the discretion of the local authority under the structure of the order made by Mostyn J who, rather than requiring restraint, had simply sanctioned its use.
In like manner to the effect of a secure accommodation order, an order under the inherent jurisdiction in these cases does not itself deprive a young person of his or her liberty, it merely authorises the local authority (or those acting on their behalf) to do so. This distinction was, unfortunately, not made sufficiently clear by Keehan J in Local Authority v D when he summarised the issue before the court (at paragraph 9) in terms of determining whether or not C was deprived of his liberty. With respect, the issue in such cases is, rather, whether the court should give a local authority the authority to deprive a young person of their liberty should they consider that that is necessary. In the event, Keehan J’s determination turned on the different basis that, because of the agreement of the young person it was not necessary for the court to give such authority to the local authority at that time.

(c) The different perspectives of Article 5 and an application for authorisation

This further consideration also points to the same overall conclusion. A determination that a person has or has not been deprived of their liberty in breach of Art 5 will often be a retrospective evaluation of the individual’s current and past circumstances. In that regard the question of whether or not they have or had consented to the restrictive regime is likely to be an important element; one cannot normally be said to be deprived of liberty when one has freely agreed to the relevant regime. This is in contrast to the court’s role under s 25 and s 119 or under the inherent jurisdiction, where the court’s perspective is normally prospective, determining whether circumstances exist that justify a local authority placing a child or young person in accommodation for the purpose of restricting their liberty.

(d) The purpose of an order under the inherent jurisdiction authorising the placement of a child in the equivalent of secure accommodation.

The need for an order authorising a local authority to place a child in the equivalent of secure accommodation derives from two factors. The first, and fundamental aspect, is to ensure that the absence of available secure accommodation does not lead to the structure imposed by s 25 being avoided. The terms of s 25 should be treated as applying to the same effect when a local authority is placing a child or proposing to place a child in the equivalent of secure accommodation. When viewed from this perspective, it is clear that a local authority cannot invest itself with the requisite authority and that a child’s agreement or consent cannot authorise such a placement. Neither the local authority nor a child/young person can authorise what Parliament has decided only the court can authorise.
The second factor derives from Article 5. The court’s authorisation means that if the authorisation is used for the purposes of depriving a child of their liberty the legal requirements of Article 5 will also have been fulfilled: see Re K (Secure Accommodation Order: Right to Liberty) [2001] 1 FLR 526. The court will necessarily have determined that the child’s welfare justifies, or even requires, him/her being deprived of their liberty for the purposes of maintaining the placement in the secure accommodation.
Drawing these matters together, once it is seen that the court’s power under s 25 / s 119 is not dependent upon any question of consent, the difficulties that arose in this case, as it was presented to the judge and, initially, to this court, disappear. The fact that any consent may or may not be ‘valid’ or ‘enduring’ on the day the order is sought, or at any subsequent point, or that a ‘valid’ consent is later withdrawn, is irrelevant to the scope of the court’s powers, whether they are exercised under statute or under the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court. The existence or absence of consent may be relevant to whether the circumstances will or will not amount to a deprivation of liberty under Art 5. But that assessment is independent of the decision that the court must make when faced with an application for an order authorising placement in secure accommodation, registered or otherwise.
This approach, where the question of whether or not an Art 5 deprivation of liberty occurs depends upon the facts on the ground at a particular time and is not necessarily required by, or created by, the court order but by the act of those caring for the child under the court’s authorisation, accords with the ECtHR jurisprudence summarised at paragraph 23 and onwards above.

Further, the need for there to be an absence of valid consent before the Storck criteria are established, does not mean that the presence of an apparently valid consent prevents the circumstances from amounting to a deprivation of liberty (see De Wilde, Ooms and Versyp, Storck para 75 and Buzadji). In terms of domestic authority, paragraphs 23 to 31 of MM and PJ could not be more clear – “where conditions amounting to a deprivation of liberty are compulsorily imposed by law, the agreement of an individual cannot prevent that compulsory confinement from constituting a deprivation of liberty”. In like manner, it is to be recalled that the court in De Wilde stated:

“Finally and above all, the right to liberty is too important in a “democratic society” within the meaning of the Convention for a person to lose the benefit of the protection of the Convention for the single reason that he gives himself up to be taken into detention. Detention might violate Article 5 even although the person concerned might have agreed to it” [emphasis added].

Conclusion

It inevitably follows from the above analysis, and from the Appellant’s concession, that Mostyn J’s initial misgivings were well-placed but that he was unfortunately drawn into a legally erroneous position by accepting that it was necessary for the court to find a lack of valid consent before it could grant the local authority’s application. In the circumstances any question of the judge being correct in adding the gloss of ‘enduring’ to this non-existent jurisdictional requirement falls away.
I should make clear that this case does not concern the placement of children in other than the equivalent of secure accommodation. Different considerations will apply when an application is directed towards, and only directed towards, a deprivation of liberty. In that situation, subject to De Wilde, the question of whether or not the subject of an application to authorise the deprivation of liberty of a young person under the inherent jurisdiction is in agreement with the proposed regime may form part of an evaluation of whether such authorisation is necessary. Local Authority v D is an example of a case where the judge concluded that the young person’s stance rendered a court order unnecessary.
Conversely, as referred to above, once the court has authorised placement in secure accommodation or its equivalent, it may properly be considered that the matter can be left to those who are authorised to operate the care regime on a day to day basis and, as in the present case, they may work with the young person in a flexible manner using their powers of restriction or deprivation when necessary, but relaxing them when it is safe and appropriate to do so. Such issues are fact-specific to each case and are not matters of jurisdiction.
The Appellant’s appeal, as it had become by the close of argument, is now no more than a challenge to the judge’s discretion and could only succeed if this court were to be satisfied that the judge was wrong to grant authorisation to the local authority notwithstanding the apparent consent of the young person. There is no basis for holding that Mostyn J was ‘wrong’ to authorise restriction of liberty in this case. Indeed, as the judge himself observed, the breakdown of the placement so soon after the January order had been made vindicated his determination on that occasion; it also justified the making of a further order in respect of the new placement.

The Court of Appeal also made broader comments about the chronic and acute lack of beds for children who present with these difficulties, and the inherent unsuitability of using the inherent jurisdiction as a sticking plaster for the lack of bed space.

This appeal relates to the exercise of the inherent jurisdiction by the High Court, Family Division when called upon to make orders which, but for a lack of capacity in the statutory system, would be made as secure accommodation orders under Children Act, 1989, s 25 (CA 1989).
Official figures published by the Department for Education^[1] show that, as at 31 March 2018, there were some 255 places in secure children’s homes in England and Wales. These places are taken up either by young people sent there through the criminal justice system or under CA 1989, s 25 secure accommodation orders. As will be explained more fully below, a child who is being looked after by a local authority in England or Wales may only be placed in secure accommodation in a children’s home if that home has been approved for such use either by the Secretary of State in England or the Welsh Government in Wales. This court understands that, in recent years, there has been a growing disparity between the number of approved secure children’s homes and the greater number of young people who require secure accommodation. As the statutory scheme permits of no exceptions in this regard, where an appropriate secure placement is on offer in a unit which is either not a children’s home, or is a children’s home that has not been approved for secure accommodation, the relevant local authority has sought approval by an application under the inherent jurisdiction asking for the court’s permission to restrict the liberty of the young person concerned under the terms of the regime of the particular unit on offer.
Despite the best efforts of CAFCASS Cymru (this being a case concerning a Welsh young person), it has not been possible to obtain firm data as to the apparent disparity between the demand for secure accommodation places and the limited number available, nor of the number of applications under the inherent jurisdiction in England and Wales to restrict the liberty of a young person outside the statutory scheme. The data published by the Department for Education referred to in paragraph 2 simply measures the occupancy rate within the limited number of approved secure places without attempting to record the level of demand.
This court has been told by counsel, on a broad anecdotal basis, that each local authority may, on average, make an application for a restricted liberty declaration under the inherent jurisdiction in one case each year. If that is so then, across England and Wales, the total number of such applications would be in the region of 150 per year. The understanding, again anecdotal, of judges hearing these cases is that that figure is probably a very substantial under-estimate; for example, in one week recently a medium-size court outside London heard five such applications. Again, by way of example, Mr Justice Holman described the situation in one week in the High Court in 2017 with a tone of wholly appropriate concern in A Local Authority v AT and FE [2017] EWHC 2458 (Fam):
1. “5. It appears that currently such authorisation can only be given by the High Court in exercise of its inherent jurisdiction. This week I have been sitting here at the Royal Courts of Justice as the applications judge. This case is about the sixth case this week in which I have been asked to exercise the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court to authorise the deprivation of liberty of a child in similar circumstances. There are two yet further similar cases listed before me today.

6. Quite frankly, the High Court sitting here at the Royal Courts of Justice is not an appropriate resource for orders of this kind, and I personally have been almost drowned out by these applications this week. Further, although I have no time properly to consider this today, I am increasingly concerned that the device of resort to the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court is operating to by-pass the important safeguard under the regulations of approval by the Secretary of State of establishments used as secure accommodation. There is a grave risk that the safeguard of approval by the Secretary of State is being denied to some of the most damaged and vulnerable children. This is a situation which cannot go on, and I intend to draw it to the attention of the President of the Family Division.”

It is plainly a matter for concern that so many applications are being made to place children in secure accommodation outside the statutory scheme laid down by Parliament. The concern is not so much because of the pressure that this places on the court system, or the fact that local authorities have to engage in a more costly court process; the concern is that young people are being placed in units which, by definition, have not been approved as secure placements by the Secretary of State when that approval has been stipulated as a pre-condition by Parliament

The need for precision about the sort of restrictions that a children’s home can place on children and the need for training, inspection and monitoring of homes that are authorised to do so sprang out of the Pindown scandal, and the ingredients are in place for us to slide back into those sorts of dreadful abuses that began with good intentions but got so far removed from how the State ought to be dealing with its most vulnerable children. I hugely applaud the Court of Appeal here – the lack of secure beds is an accident waiting to happen.

The wider issues and the need for scrutiny

Before concluding this judgment, I return to the concern (referred to in paragraph 5) that so many young people are now being placed in secure accommodation outside the statutory scheme laid down by Parliament in units which, by definition, have not been approved by the Secretary of State as secure children’s homes. Whilst the High Court has a duty to consider such cases and must come to a decision taking account of the welfare needs of the individual young person, in the wider context the situation is fundamentally unsatisfactory. In contrast to the Secretary of State, the court is not able to conduct an inspection of the accommodation and must simply rely upon what is said about any particular unit in the evidence presented to it. In like manner, where a local authority, as is typically the case, is looking to place a young person in a bespoke unit a great distance away from their home area, the local social workers must make decisions at arm’s length and, it must be assumed, often without first-hand detailed knowledge of the particular unit.
The wide-ranging and powerful submissions of the ALC raise issues which are beyond the compass of this appeal but nevertheless deserve consideration in other places. The ALC identifies the following four key questions arising from the fact that a parallel system now exists under the inherent jurisdiction with respect to the secure accommodation of young people who would otherwise fall within the statutory code:

i) What is the impact, if any, on children of there being in use two parallel processes?

ii) Is there a disparity in the adherence to due process obligations or in the safeguarding a child’s access and participation in court decisions between these two processes?

iii) Is there a disparity in the practical protection afforded to children through the two processes which may result in arbitrary unfairness?

iv) What are the effects on the Convention Rights of children and the protection of their Article 5 and 6 rights of having two processes and in particular when does the ECHR case of Storck apply?

In the circumstances, a direction will be made that a copy of the judgments in this case is sent to each of the following: the Secretary of State for Education, the Secretary of State for Justice, the Chair of the Education Select Committee, the Chair of the Justice Select Committee, the Welsh Government and the Commissioner for Children.

Having ended the blog proper, two bits of shameless self-promotion (I say shameless, but I’m scarlet and writhing with shame as I type, honestly)

I am on the shortlist for Legal Commenter of the year at the Family Law Awards. I’ve won this before, so I didn’t want to campaign for it, feeling that the goodness should be shared. But it was amazing to be nominated, and the words said were very kind. My readers should vote, if they can spare a minute, and if you want to vote for me that’s very sweet (but don’t feel obligated to do so) . Voting ends on Friday 19th October, so there’s time if you want to. https://www.familylawawards.com/ehome/familylawawards2018/vote
As this blog is about Secure Accommodation, a plug for my book In Secure, which is fiction and set in a secure accommodation unit with ten children – there’s magic, adventure, romance, shocks and scares. It’s Tracy Beaker with Tentacles basically. If you haven’t read it yet, I’d love you to read it. You can get a e-book for 99p and the gorgeous paperback for eleven quid. If you have read it, please put a review on Amazon, it makes a huge difference. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secure-Andrew-Pack/dp/1911586947/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1539007741&sr=8-2

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Posted in case law, inherent jurisdiction and tagged bed shortage in secure, consent and secure accommodation, Court of Appeal, inherent jurisdiction, mostyn j, mostyn j v court of appeal, Re T a child 2018, secure accommodation. Bookmark the permalink.

Magical sparkle powers, secure accommodation and consent

Posted on April 19, 2018 by suesspiciousminds

These are two intricate judgments about the same child, where two different and unusual points of law collide.

For a while now, because there are not enough Secure Accommodation beds for the children who need to be placed in them, the High Court has been asked (and is often granting) approval for the child to be placed in a unit that is NOT approved for Secure Accommodation and giving all of the powers for the child’s liberty to be restricted, using the Court’s inherent jurisdiction – or what I like to call magical sparkle powers. (I think this is a public enquiry waiting to happen – there are very good reasons – google Pindown – for why Parliament set up a very restrictive statutory regime for how children can be deprived of their liberty, with training and inspection regimes to safeguard those children. Others take a pragmatic view that these children need to be somewhere safe and contained and as we don’t have enough Secure Units, we have to do something, and the High Court are doing their best with the resources we have)
The deprivation of liberty for children as a result of their circumstances short of the secure accommodation regime, where the Court of Appeal and High Court have found that parents can consent to the arrangements and that capacitious children can consent to the arrangements too. So that an authorisation under the inherent jurisdiction is not necessary, because it is being done by consent.

What appeared before Mostyn J was a young person for whom the grounds for Secure Accommodation were clearly made out, but there was no bed in a Secure Unit. He was being asked to approve a different form of home to use those powers, BUT it was argued that the young person was consenting to that regime, and so a declaration by the Court for use of inherent jurisdiction was not necessary.

The way that Mostyn J approached it was to think about the quality of consent – was it temporary or enduring?

A Local Authority v SW and Others 2018

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2018/576.html

Mostyn J firstly sets out his approach when looking at authorising secure accommodation with a lowercase s, under the inherent jurisdiction. I wholeheartedly agree – I’d rather we weren’t doing it at all, but at least this is making efforts to safeguard these very vulnerable children.

Since the enactment of the Act that scheme appears to have functioned tolerably well until recent times, when an unhappy phenomenon has arisen, and that phenomenon is that there had not been sufficient authorised places made available under this section. When I say “authorised places” I am talking about places that have been authorised by regulations made pursuant to subsection (7), which allow the Secretary of State to prescribe which places may provide secure accommodation. In recent times, a phenomenon has arisen, as I have said, whereby insufficient places have been made available to meet the demand for children to be placed in secure accommodation. Therefore, a mirror procedure has been devised by the High Court which has authorised placements in secure environments for children in places not authorised pursuant to the regulations made under section 25 of the Children At. And this is such a case. There is no suitable place to accommodate a child pursuant to an order under section 25 of the Children Act (or its Welsh equivalent) apparently available anywhere in the country, even in Scotland.
There have been a number of authorities as to the scope of the power of the High Court under an inherent jurisdiction to make these alternative mirror arrangements. In my opinion, lest the democratic process is to be subverted by judicial activism, it is important that, so far as is practicably achievable, that mirror orders made under the inherent jurisdiction conform as much as possible with the prescriptions within section 25 and its subsidiary regulations. Were the court to devise an alternative scheme that deviated significantly from the terms of section 25 (or its Welsh equivalent) there would, as I have said, be a danger of criticism of judicial activism in conflict with a Parliamentary directive.
Therefore, it seems to me that if the court is to make an alternative mirror order pursuant to its inherent jurisdiction, it should strive to ensure that, in the first instance, it is not longer than 3 months, and that each subsequent renewal is for no more than 6 months. Further, it should be satisfied initially and on each renewal that the criteria within section 25(1) are met. I am not saying that the court is imprisoned within the four corners of the terms of section 25(1). To coin a phrase, it should not have its liberty so deprived, but there should be endeavours made by the court that, so far as possible, it should be satisfied that the statutory criteria are met. Were that not so, then there would be, by judicial activism, established an alternative scheme which perhaps might have lower standards than that which Parliament has decreed should apply where the liberty of a child who is the subject of a care order is deprived.
The compliance of section 25 with the European Human Rights Convention and the Human Rights Act was considered by the Court of Appeal in the famous case of Re K [2001] 1 FLR 526. In that case it was held that a secure accommodation order is indeed a deprivation of liberty within the meaning of article 5 of the Convention, but it is not incompatible with the Convention where it is justified under one of the exceptions in article 5(1). For example, where the order is for the purposes of educational supervision. I should say here that education within article 5(1) plainly is not to be read as being confined purely to scholastic instruction, but must be given, for the purposes of the construction of that provision, a wider definition. Re K was decided 17 years ago, and since then there have been (as is well known) significant developments both in the Strasbourg Court and domestically in the interpretation of the scope and meaning of article 5. Famously, in Storck v Germany [2005] 43 EHRR 96 it was held that in order for article 5 to be engaged three criteria must be met: namely, that there must be an objective component of confinement in a particular restricted place for a not negligible length of time; secondly, there must be a subjective component of lack of valid consent; and, thirdly, there must be an attribution of responsibility to the state. Thus, there must be a non-consensual detention at the behest of the state. This formulation was approved by the Supreme Court in the Cheshire West case [2014] UKSC 19 at para 37.

He then turns to the issue of consent

The second limb of the formulation requires there to be a lack of valid consent. An interesting question arises, which is relevant to the decision that I have to make, as to whether this requirement has to be demonstrated when an application is determined under section 25 of the Children Act 1989. The notes to the Red Book state that the consent of a young person to the making of a secure accommodation order is not required. The citation for that is Re W (a child) [2016] EWCA (Civ) 804 . But that does not really answer the question that I am now posing, which is that if the young person who is the subject of an application under section 25 consents to the application, can the order in fact validly be made? Because in order for there to be a deprivation of liberty, there must be, as the Strasbourg Court has said, present the subjective component of lack of valid consent. So one can see a curious catch-22 arising, which is where the local authority consider that a child should be placed in secure accommodation, and the child through his representatives realises that the case against him or her is very strong, if not overwhelming, and consents to it, that the act of consent in fact prevents the order being made. That cannot be an acceptable construction of the provision, in my respectful opinion, and it is for this reason that consent, or lack of consent, never features in applications under section 25, and that, as Miss Edmondson has eloquently explained, in many cases the applications for these orders are disposed of by consent.
So this gives rise to the question whether there must be demonstrated lack of valid consent if the application is being made under the alternative mirror procedure pursuant to the inherent jurisdiction. If the issue of lack of consent is not a requirement under the statutory procedure, and if, as I have suggested, it is important that the alternative mirror procedure conforms as much as possible to the statutory procedure, it is hard to see why there should be an imputation of the lack of consent requirement into the alternative procedure. However, I am persuaded by Mr Laing that all the authorities under the alternative procedure have emphasised strict compliance with the Strasbourg jurisprudence on article 5. Therefore, I do accept, even though this may appear anomalous, that where the court is considering secure accommodation pursuant to the alternative procedure, that it does have to be satisfied of the presence of a lack of valid consent. It may well be that in a case in which an application is being made under section 25 (or under its Welsh sibling) the court will have to consider the point that I have spent some time describing, and whether there does in fact, since the arrival of the Strasbourg jurisprudence to which I have referred, lie latently within section 25 an insoluble catch-22.
So I proceed on the basis that in order for the order to be made today, the 3 components have to be present. There is no dispute as to the first and the third. The question is as to whether the second is demonstrated in circumstances where there is active consent by the child with whom I am concerned to the placement in question.
This matter was considered by Keehan J in the decision of A local authority v D [2016] EWHC 3473 (Fam) (otherwise known as Re C). It has to be said that in that case the conduct of the children concerned was very much of a lower level of concern to that which I am concerned with. However, Keehan J decided clearly that the child in question could give a valid consent. Moreover, he decided at paragraph 58 that once he was satisfied that valid consent has been given, the fact that he may withdraw that consent at some point in the near future does not negate the valid consent he gave nor does it negate the legal consequences of that consent. I have considered this judgment carefully, and I take from it that the concept of consent does not necessarily mean hearing the words “I do”. There must be an authentic consent, and this much is accepted by Mr Laing who represents the child. As he put it, he must say it and mean it. The consent in question must be an authentic consent, and it must be an enduring consent. This means that the court will have to make a judgment as to whether the consent is going to endure in the short to medium term, or whether it is a merely evanescent consent. If the court is satisfied by the history that the consent in question is merely evanescent and is not likely to endure, then, in my judgment, that is not relevant consent for the purposes for which I am concerned. This is, to my mind, to state the obvious. So the court can only make the order in question if it is satisfied that there is a lack of valid consent in the way that I have described it: authentic, and likely to endure.

(The bits in italic are the parts that probably lead to the decision being appealed. For my part, I think that Mostyn is right. We can’t predict whether consent will be withdrawn, but where the history is very clear that it is a temporary consent that the young person can’t maintain, that’s a factor to be taken into account. Put bluntly, if a Local Authority are looking to have the power to stop a young person leaving a children’s home because they have a history of running away, how much force does the young person saying “okay, I agree that I can’t leave… but if I change my mind and try to, you’ve got to let me” actually have?)

On the facts of the case Mostyn J decided that the consent being proffered by the child was not authentic and likely to endure and he made the inherent jurisdiction declarations.

Permission to appeal was then given by Jackson LJ. The child absconded from the unit, and the case came back to Court. And if there was ever a daunting prospect in advocacy it is appearing before Mostyn J on a case where he knows you have just appealed him. His approach to such things is not sanguine. It is more akin to striking an Edwardian gentleman about the face with a white silken glove. In short, it’s on.

Like Donkey Kong.

So, part 2

A Local Authority v SW part 2 2018

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2018/816.html

That decision of mine has been appealed and permission to appeal was granted by Peter Jackson LJ on 19^th March 2018 under the second limb, namely that there were compelling reasons for an appeal to be heard. I have noted that in the skeleton argument in support of the proposed appeal, an analogue in relation to the consent to sex was made; similarly, an analogue with the formation of a commercial contract was made. It will be for the Court of Appeal to decide whether these analogues have any relevance at all to the consent which, is in fact, in play. I would point out that a person at the age of the child with which I am concerned cannot consent to sex or form a contract, so the relevance of those analogues at the moment presently escapes me.
In my judgment, the view that I took that the consent in question has to be found to be both authentic and enduring is well borne out by the subsequent events. I cite from the witness statement made by a social worker on behalf of the Local Authority dated 16^th March 2018. At para.10 it says this:
1. “On 3^rd March 2018, [name redacted] went out for a walk without permission at 16.45 following becoming agitated at the home and staff followed her. A staff member [name redacted] has reported that she maintained contact with [name redacted] through text messaging and met up with her again in McDonald’s at 17.40. [Name redacted] reports to [name redacted] that she was upset about her younger brother staying at his mother’s house when he was not supposed to. On her return, [name redacted] went into her bedroom, the following day staff reported that [name redacted] was pacing back and forth in her room, asking for a paracetamol for a headache. [Name redacted] reports that [name redacted] unusual behaviour continued, leading her to request a room search. [Name redacted] became aggressive towards staff whilst in her bedroom when staff asked her to do a room search. They describe that her eyes were like saucers and could possibly have been under the influence of a substance. [Name redacted] used a plastic plaque to harm herself, was hitting out at staff with it and making verbal threats that she would, “Fuck them up”. The staff reported that [name redacted] calmed down quickly after the incident. Police attendance had initially been requested and when the police arrived, [name redacted] became agitated again and upon search of her, a mobile phone with Internet use fell out of her bra. Upon a search of the room, nothing further was found. [Name redacted] was admitted to hospital following the incident of self-harm, where she had superficially cut her wrists. At the hospital, she was seen by CAMHS and they concluded that she had no further self-harm intent and no suicidal ideation and were happy for her to be discharged. She was discharged back to [name redacted] on 6^th March 2018 at 2.00 p.m…

12. On 6^th March 2018, following being discharged, [name redacted] left her accommodation at about 5.00 p.m. and was reported missing to the police. She was found by the police smelling of alcohol, having hallucinations and was aggressive. She was refusing to be monitored and was very agitated and was given two milligrams of Lorazepam to calm her down. Ambulance staff transported her to hospital on 7^th March 2018 at 5.00 a.m. where [name redacted] reported to hospital staff that she did not remember what had happened, was given alcohol and sweets and reported to have had anal and oral sex with one man who she did not know. [Name redacted] refused to go to the [name redacted], a provision to offer urgent and follow-up care to people who have been sexually assaulted but agreed to a hepatitis B vaccine, bloods and sexual health tests. [Name redacted] was given three weeks preventative medication for HIV.”

Three days after that, the placement of the child completely broke down and she was moved to a new placement in the Midlands. She is content and compliant at that placement. Everyone hopes that this new placement will represent a success for her and that improvements can be made in her mental rehabilitation.
The consequence of this is that the order that I made authorising her detention at the previous placement has been overtaken by events. That order will therefore be discharged and replaced by a fresh order made by me today. The consequence of that is that the order in respect of which permission to appeal has been granted by Peter Jackson LJ no longer exists and that appeal becomes redundant. However, in view of the fact that I intend to adopt the same legal reasoning in respect of this fresh placement will, no doubt, lead the child to seek permission to appeal this new order, notwithstanding that the point of this exercise entirely escapes me.

At this point, I like to pause and imagine the charged atmosphere should Mostyn J and Peter Jackson LJ find themselves in a slow lift together at the Royal Courts of Justice, with perhaps the “Girl from Ipanema” as elevator hold music playing in the background.

So, the order that was being appealed is no more, so the appeal has to end (it is an appeal of an order, not a decision – though the Court of Appeal do fluctuate quite wildly on whether they champion this point or completely ignore it – see the various decisions about findings of fact). Mostyn J recognises that this judgment is also likely to be appealed (though he is on even firmer ground in deciding that the young person’s consent is not enduring, the point of law as to whether that’s necessary if capacity and consent are both present remains)

On the last occasion in my judgment I held that the consent, as I have said, can only be found to exist where it is authentic and enduring. That I was correct in that determination is demonstrated by the subsequent events. Notwithstanding that the child on the last occasion expressed to me, seemingly authentic consent, subsequent events show that within a relatively short period of time, that consent was not genuinely expressed because the events which I have set out occurred.
For these reasons, I am satisfied once again, even more satisfied than I was on the previous occasion, that the deprivation of liberty declaration should be given, granting the Local Authority the powers and protections which I have mentioned in my previous judgment.
I have asked, if I were not to make this declaration, what position would the Local Authority and, indeed, the child be left in? She would not be in a position of formal state detention with the powers and protections that attach to that. She would, on the face of it, be free to leave her present placement, although the consequences would be that she would then become an officially missing person and the Local Authority could summon police assistance to bring her back to base, but there will be nothing to prevent her leaving again almost instantly, a situation that is almost too absurd to contemplate as a consequence that the law intends to apply.
For these orders, therefore, I make an equivalent order to the one that I made on the last occasion in relation to this new placement. For the avoidance of any doubt and in anticipation of an application for leave to appeal, I refuse leave to appeal on the same basis that I did on the last occasion, namely that I see no prospect of an appeal succeeding and, with all due respect to Peter Jackson LJ, I can see myself no compelling reason for the appeal to be heard.
I will authorise the bespeaking with expedition of a transcript of the judgment I have just given at public expense.

(Bespeaking, by the way, doesn’t refer to speech – it isn’t a posh way of saying, “speaking”, it means to order in advance. It is like Captain Picard saying “Make it so”)

Mostyn J had raised in the first judgment the issue of whether consent could block a Secure Accommodation application, if it were not for his test of whether the consent is authentic and enduring. If it were not for the particular construction of s25, that would be a powerful point. If the ‘no order principle’ applied to s25, consent from the young person would be sufficient to block the order, and then the young person could immediately withdraw the consent and walk out of the placement. Assuming no criminal offence was being committed, nobody could stop the child (it is arguable that the LA could use the 72 hour provision if they had not already done so, but only arguable)

However, section 25 is constructed in such a way that it is not at all clear that s1(5) applies

1 (5)Where a court is considering whether or not to make one or more orders under this Act with respect to a child, it shall not make the order or any of the orders unless it considers that doing so would be better for the child than making no order at all.

That would mean that the Court should not make a Secure Accommodation Order if the child is consenting.

BUT

s25 (4)If a court determines that any such criteria are satisfied, it shall make an order authorising the child to be kept in secure accommodation and specifying the maximum period for which he may be so kept.

And those two sections are in conflict. After nearly 30 years of the Act, we don’t actually know whether s1(5) applies to a section 25 order. I would always have said that it didn’t, but it is less clear since the Human Rights Act. Since a Court making a Secure Accommodation Order not only has to think about article 5, but also article 8 – is it proportionate and necessary? And I think consent might come into play on necessity.

In conclusion then, I agree with Mostyn J’s decision and rationale. I disagree that there’s no value in an appeal. It is not usually desirable to have an appeal on a decision that you think is right, but it would be nice to have clarity and backing. Particularly given that a lot of Secure Accommodation applications are heard before the Magistrates and having to decide whether consent blocks Secure Accommodation order might be better if they have some very clear judicial guidance.

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Posted in case law and tagged 2018 EWHC 576, 2018 EWHC 816, a local authority v sw 2018, a local authority v sw part 2 2018, child's consent to secure, consent to deprivation of liberty, inherent jurisdiction, magical sparkle powers, mostyn j, Peter Jackson LJ, secure accommodation. Bookmark the permalink.

Magical sparkle powers – a sparkle too far?

Posted on October 18, 2017 by suesspiciousminds

Regular readers will know that when I read the phrase “The Court’s powers under the inherent jurisdiction are theoretically limitless” it makes me bristle, and hence my coining the name “magical sparkle powers” for the use of these, to remind ourselves that the Court is effectively inventing powers for itself out of thin air.

As is established law, Princess Kenny MAY use her magical sparkle powers to get the Black Friday Bundaroo

The problem I have with it is not that the Court have used the inherent jurisdiction as a way to solve a particularly thorny legal problem on an individual case, it is that this then gets used as an authority for “well, we could do THAT with our magical sparkle powers, so THIS is only a further stride along that path” and then THIS gets used as authority for taking another stride to THE OTHER. It is the stepping stone issue.

So a while back, the President ruled that the inherent jurisdiction could be extended to protect vulnerable adults, and then someone else ruled that his decision was authority for protecting adults with vulnerabilities, and then someone else ruled that THAT decision was authority for protecting adults who didn’t seem to have any vulnerabilities but whom the Court wanted to protect

And then we end up with this
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/HCJ/2017/65.html

Mahzar v Lord Chancellor 2017

Mr Mazar is a 26 year old man with muscular dystrophy. He has no mental health problems and he has capacity. Part of his physical illness is that he needs apparatus to breath through, and this apparatus needs to be suctioned four to five times every hour. Without this, he could be at risk of serious injury or death. Mr Mazar wanted to be in his own home for this procedure rather than be detained in hospital – he says that his family members have had training in the procedure. That may be contentious – I don’t know whether th

I don’t know the ins and outs of why Mr Mazar came to that conclusion, but we don’t NEED to know. If he is an adult, with capacity to make his own decisions and does not have a mental health disorder, he is entitled to say that he does not want to be admitted to hospital. That’s his right. He is entitled to say that even if all of the medical opinion is that this is dangerous and stupid. Even if it might lead to his death.

What actually happened was that the Trust applied to the High Court for permission under the inherent jurisdiction to not only treat him against his will, but for police officers to enter his home and remove him by force if necessary to take him to hospital.

2. The order complained of is as follows:

“(I) It is lawful for the police and any medical professionals, as are required, to enter [address] (the property) and use reasonable and proportionate force to do so.

(2) It is lawful for the police and any medical professionals, as are required, to remove Mr Aamir Mazhar from the property and to convey him to an ambulance.

(3) It is lawful for the ambulance service, together with any other medical professionals and police as are required, to convey Mr Aamir Mazhar to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham.

(4) It is lawful until further order for Mr Aamir Mazhar to be deprived of his liberty at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham for the purposes of receiving care and treatment from his arrival on 22 April 2016 and then to be conveyed to the specialist respiratory centre at Guy’s Hospital, London until suitable care can be put in place for him at home, or to be transferred to an alternative specialist respiratory unit.

(5) The matter shall be listed for urgent hearing on the first available date after 25 April 2016 (upon application to the Clerk Rules (sic)).

(6) There be leave to serve this order without a Court seal until 16:00 on Monday 25th April 2016.”

It was an out of hours application, without any notice to Mr Mazhar or his family and they were therefore not present or represented at the hearing.

The pleaded consequence of the order made by Mostyn J is the forcible and what is described as the highly distressing removal of Mr Mazhar from his family home at 3 am on Saturday 23 April 2016 by two police officers and the ambulance service. Mr Mazhar was and is a young man who has the capacity to make decisions for himself. It is submitted on his behalf that there was no basis in law for the order to be made or for the actions taken in accordance with it.

7. Mr Mazhar seeks to argue that the inherent jurisdiction cannot be used to detain a person who is not of unsound mind for the purposes of article 5(1)(e) of the Convention and that a vulnerable person’s alleged incapacity as a result of duress or undue influence is not a basis to make orders in that jurisdiction that are other than facilitative of the person recovering, retaining or exercising his capacity. His removal and detention were accordingly unlawful and in breach of article 5. He also seeks to argue that his article 6 rights were engaged such that the absence of any challenge by the judge to his capacity and/or the evidence of the NHS Trust and the absence of any opportunity to challenge those matters himself or though his family or representatives before the order was executed was an unfair process. He says that his article 8 right to respect for family and private life was engaged and that the order was neither necessary nor in accordance with the law.

Mr Mazhar sought damages against the Trust, who settled out of Court. He also made a Human Rights Act claim against the Lord Chancellor for breach of article 5 (that he was unlawfully deprived of his liberty), article 8 (that his right to private and family life was breached) and article 6 (that such a fundamental decision was taken without any challenge to the application being made.

The Lord Chancellor concedes that Mr Mazhar was deprived of his liberty when he was removed from his home and taken to hospital and accepts that he was not a person of unsound mind within the meaning of article 5(1)(e) at the date of the order. He does not however accept that the broader proposition that the inherent jurisdiction is limited in the way suggested on behalf of Mr Mazhar and in particular that it can only be used to facilitate the re-establishment of autonomy. He argues that its use to detain and remove a person who has mental capacity to make decisions about his care (but who is a vulnerable adult) to a safe place such as a hospital is a well recognised jurisdiction which acts as a safety net to protect persons who fall outside the scope of the Mental Capacity Act 2005. He contends that use of the jurisdiction to detain is neither arbitrary nor unlawful because there are procedural safeguards ie it is a procedure prescribed by law, governed by Rules of Court, Practice Directions and Guidance. It is clearly established by case law which is sufficiently accessible and foreseeable with advice and the jurisdiction’s flexibility is reasoned and justified so that, for example, where detention is permitted there are rigorous safeguards that include regular review.

9. The Lord Chancellor does not accept that there were procedural failings such that the detention was unlawful within the meaning of article 5 of the Convention or unfair at common law. He avers that in any event the threshold of ‘gross and obvious irregularity’ is not met. The procedural protections for anyone deprived of their liberty are the lex specialis of article 5(4) and provide equivalent protection to article 6 which the Lord Chancellor submits is not engaged. Any breach of article 8, which is not admitted, is justified by being in accordance with the law, necessary and proportionate.

So who is right?

It is a really important point. As the High Court repeatedly says – the powers under the inherent jurisdiction are theoretically limitless – so on the face of it Mostyn J had the power to make that order, even though Mr Mazhar was of sound mind and had capacity to make his own decision.

Is that really right?

If the law is going to authorise police officers to come into your home and remove you by force and take you to hospital and detain you there while you have treatment that you have not consented to, that seems to me rather a big deal – particularly as there’s no clarity at all about what hurdles the Trust ought to have to meet to establish that – if Mr Mazhar lacked capacity there would be a statutory framework as to what the Court would need to consider and a mechanism for challenge.

So I was reading this case with great interest to see what was decided about whether or not the inherent jurisdiction really does give Mostyn J or other Judges the power to make such a dramatic order – without Mr Mazhar even being told about it in advance and having the opportunity to have his say.

The order was made on a specific evidential basis which was recorded in the recitals to the order. It is important to acknowledge that this prima facie evidential basis was the evidence, at that stage unchallenged because the application was made without notice, which the judge had available to him and which he decided was sufficient to lead to the order that he made. It is part of Mr Mazhar’s claim against the Lord Chancellor that the judge should not have accepted the evidence without an opportunity being given at that stage for challenge and, in any event, that it was insufficient in law to justify the order made. It is also important to acknowledge that some of the evidence provided to the judge was wrong and may have been untruthful. The difference between the recorded prima facie evidence and the agreed facts is stark. The claim against the NHS Trust which deals with those issues has been settled and it is not for this court to give judgment on the failings of the NHS Trust. Some of those failings are however apparent in the differences revealed between the recitals and the agreed facts. The implications are very worrying indeed.

Sadly, the Court doesn’t answer that at all. Instead we get reams of paragraphs about why the challenge to the order of the High Court can’t be by HRA claim or claim for vicarious liability on the part of the Lord Chancellor, and judicial immunity, and this is all absolutely right, but still very frustrating.

43. Lord Denning MR described the principle of judicial immunity in Sirros v Moore [1975] QB 118 at 132D:

“Ever since the year 1613, if not before, it has been accepted in our law that no action is maintainable against a judge for anything said or done by him in the excess of a jurisdiction which belongs to him. The words which he speaks are protected by an absolute privilege. The orders which he gives, and the sentences which he imposes, cannot be made the subject of civil proceedings against him. No matter that the judge was under some gross error or ignorance, or was actuated by envy, hatred or malice, and all uncharitableness, he is not liable to an action. The remedy of the party aggrieved is to appeal to the Court of Appeal or to apply for habeas corpus or a writ of error or certiorari, or take some such step to reverse his ruling. Of course, if the judge has accepted bribes or been in the least degree corrupt, or has perverted the course of justice, he can be punished in the criminal courts. That apart, however, a judge is not liable to an action in damages. The reason is not because the judge has any privilege to make mistakes or do wrong. It is so that he should be able to do his duty with complete independence and free from fear. It was well state by Lord Tenterden CJ in Garnett v Ferrand (1867) 6 B&C 611 625:

“This freedom from action or question at the suit of an individual is given by the law to the judges, not so much for their own sake as for the sake of the public, and for the advancement of justice, that being free from actions, they may be free in thought and independent in judgment, as all who are to administer justice ought to be”

All of this is particularly frustrating, because the Lord Chancellor had in June submitted a position statement to the effect that judicial immunity was not going to be relied upon as a defence, and then rescinded that and relied on it successfully

If Mr Mazhar wants to find out whether Mostyn J really did have the power to make that order under the inherent jurisdiction, his mechanism is an appeal of the order, not a HRA claim.

Conclusion:

78. The consequence is that I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing in the HRA (taken together with either the CPR or the FPR) that provides a power in a court or tribunal to make a declaration against the Crown in respect of a judicial act. Furthermore, the HRA has not modified the constitutional principle of judicial immunity. Likewise, the Crown is not to be held to vicariously liable for the acts of the judiciary with the consequence that the claim for a declaration is not justiciable in the Courts of England and Wales. A claim for damages against the Crown is available to Mr Mazhar for the limited purpose of compensating him for an article 5(5) breach but the forum for such a claim where the judicial act is that of a judge of the High Court cannot be a court of co-ordinate jurisdiction. On the facts of this case, the only court that can consider a damages claim is the Court of Appeal.

79. If Mr Mazhar wants to pursue his challenge to the order of Mostyn J he must do so on appeal

Annoyingly, Mr Mazhar gave evidence at the hearing, when the case turned completely on legal argument rather than his evidence, so it was unfortunate that he was put through the experience of giving evidence when the judicial immunity point was the real heart of the case.

I hope that he does want to find out and that an appeal will be brought.

That’s not to say that I think Mostyn J got this spectacularly wrong or was off on a frolic of his own – this sort of application and this sort of order is a natural extension of where the legal authorities on inherent jurisdiction are eventually going to take us. I’d be very keen to find out if the Court of Appeal think that there IS a line in the sand that needs to be drawn on inherent jurisdiction and where that line might be.

I don’t think that the law SHOULD have allowed Mr Mazhar to have police officers enter his home and remove him by force and detain him in hospital for treatment that he had a right to refuse. But I think that the law MAY say that this is within the Court’s jurisdiction and powers. I hope that even then, the Court of Appeal may have something to say about the safeguards that ought to be put in place about how such wide-ranging and sweeping powers need to be managed to respect a person’s article 5, 6 and 8 rights.

If police came to my door, forced entry and removed me from my home to hospital for treatment that I’d said I didn’t want, just because doctors thought my decision was stupid and went before a Judge on their own without putting my side of the story, I wouldn’t be satisfied to be told that the Court’s magical sparkle powers make all of this okay. It isn’t okay.

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Posted in adult social care, case law, inherent jurisdiction and tagged adults and inherent jurisdiction, article 5, article 6, inherent jurisdiction, judicial immunity, magical sparkle powers, mazhar v lord chancellor 2017, refusal of medical treatment. Bookmark the permalink.

Failure to bury a child

Posted on May 12, 2017 by suesspiciousminds

Quick warning – this case is about a child who has died, and the issue in the case was disposal of the child’s cadaver. So it may be distressing or upsetting to some readers – I will do my best to treat the subject matter with gravity and sensitivity. There’s nothing intentionally detailed or gruesome within the piece, but obviously the central issue is upsetting.

Also, there’s a criminal trial pending, so please no speculation about the identity of the parents or what may or may not have happened to the child – nobody wants to run the risk of prejudicing a fair trial.

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2017/1083.html

Re K (A Child : deceased), Re [2017]

The child died in July 2016. The Coroner released the body in October 2016. In March 2017, the child had still not been buried and no arrangements had been made for a funeral. The child’s half-sibling had been involved in care proceedings and the Local Authority, having done all that they could to persuade the parents to make those funeral arrangements, sought permission from the Court to step in and arrange the funeral themselves.

5.It was common ground during the course of submissions that the starting point in establishing a jurisdictional basis for orders relating to the burial of a child is to be found in Buchanan v Milton [1999] 2 FLR 844 at 845/846 per Hale J, as she then was:

“There is no right of ownership in a dead body. However, there is a duty at common law to arrange for its proper disposal. This duty falls primarily upon the personal representatives of the deceased (see Williams v Williams (1881) 20 ChD 659; Rees v Hughes [1946] KB 517). An executor appointed by will is entitled to obtain possession of the body for that purpose (see Sharp v Lush (1879) 10 ChD 468, 472; Dobson v North Tyneside Health Authority and Another [1997] 1 FLR 598, 602, obiter) even before the grant of probate. Where there is no executor, that same duty falls upon the administrators of the estate, but they may not be able to obtain an injunction for delivery of the body before the grant of letters of administration (see Dobson).”

In Re JS (disposal of body) [2016] EWHC 2859 (Fam) Peter Jackson J observed:

“47. The law in relation to the disposition of a dead body emanates from the decision of Kay J in Williams v Williams [1882] LR 20 ChD 659, which establishes that a dead body is not property and therefore cannot be disposed of by will. The administrator or executor of the estate has the right to possession of (but no property in) the body and the duty to arrange for its proper disposal. The concept of ‘proper disposal’ is not defined, but it is to be noted that customs change over time. It was not until the end of the 19th century that cremation was recognised as lawful in the United Kingdom, and it was in due course regulated by the Cremation Act 1902. Nowadays cremation is chosen in about 3 out of 4 cases in this country.

Thus, in English law, there is no right to dictate the treatment of one’s body after death. This is so regardless of testamentary capacity or religion. The wishes of the deceased are relevant, perhaps highly so, but are not determinative and cannot bind third parties. For discussion of the impact of the European Convention on Human Rights on the common law in this respect, see Burrows v HM Coroner for Preston [2008] EWHC 1387 (QB) and Ibuna v Arroyo [2012] EWHC 428 (Ch).”

[The Justice Peter Jackson case is one you might recall – where the teenaged child wanted to be cryogenically frozen after death, mum supported it and dad wasn’t keen. It was unusual.]

Whilst there is no legal ownership of a cadaver, the general principle is that the immediate family of the deceased have responsibility for arranging the funeral. What happens where, as here, the family do not take any action?

In Anstey v Mundle [2016] EWHC 1073 (Ch) Mr Jonathon Klein sitting as Deputy Judge of the Chancery Division concluded that the Court could not determine or direct where or how the deceased would be buried, but could declare who had the power and duty to bury the deceased, among the various contending parties. The judge adopted the reasoning of Ms Proudman QC, as she then was, in Hartshorne v Gardner [2008] EWHC 3675 (Ch).

“24. …In that case, Ms Sonia Proudman QC, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge, was invited to exercise the court’s inherent jurisdiction to direct to whom the deceased’s body should be released for the purposes of its burial. The judge accepted, as Hart J had apparently done before her, that the court has such an inherent jurisdiction. In that case, the claimant and the defendant were equally entitled to a grant of representation. It is perhaps notable that the judge did not exercise any section 116 jurisdiction. In that case, the judge identified factors which were relevant to the exercise of the court’s jurisdiction, although she did not seek to limit the relevant factors to those she listed.

The factors she identified were: one, the deceased’s wishes; two, the reasonable requirements and wishes of the family who are left to grieve; three, the location with which the deceased was most closely connected; and, four, to quote the judgment, “the most important consideration is that the body be disposed of with all proper respect and decency and if possible without further delay”. I have concluded that in this case those are also the relevant factors which I should consider.”

10.Mr Sharp contends that the factors identified at points two and four above are plainly relevant here. I agree. I would also stress that I consider proper respect and decency is not presently being shown to K’s body. I would also emphasise that there has been wholly unacceptable delay. I note that the Births and Deaths Regulations 1987 Reg 51(2) provides that if the registrar learns (after a delay of 14 days from the date on which he should have received notification of the date, place and means of disposal of the body) that the body has not been disposed of he must, unless he is informed that the body is being held for the purposes of the Human Tissue Act 2004, report the matter to the officer responsible for matters of environmental health for the district in which the body is lying. This, to my mind, indicates that as a matter of public policy, a body should be disposed of with due dispatch.

This next statutory provision arises more often with deaths in the elderly community with those who have no relatives, and is for public health grounds

Section 46(1) of the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 provides:

“It shall be the duty of a local authority to cause to be buried or cremated the body of any person who has died or been found dead in their area, in any case where it appears to the authority that no suitable arrangements for the disposal of the body have been or are being made otherwise than by the authority.”

Whilst this does not directly illuminate any of the issues that fall to be considered here it does indicate the general promotion of respect and decency for a body and the obligation for it to be disposed of with proper dispatch that is reflected in the case law that I have set out above

The Court here was asked whether under the inherent jurisdiction, the Court could authorise for the Local Authority to undertake the burial.

the concept of ‘a wise parent acting for the true interests of the [particular] child’ is integral to both the parens patriae and the inherent jurisdiction. It is, to my mind, axiomatic that a ‘wise parent’ would attend to the burial of a child. Thus having regard to the historical base and underlying philosophy of the inherent jurisdiction and the case law to which Mr Sharp has drawn my attention, I am satisfied that, pursuant to the inherent jurisdictional powers of the High court, I can authorise the Local Authority to make arrangements for the disposal of K’s body by way of burial or cremation, making the necessary funeral arrangements and if the body be cremated the disposal of the deceased remains. There are pressing practical reasons why this requires to be attended to expeditiously which are too distressing to incorporate within this judgment and need not be.

One of the obvious things that I wondered was whether there was some forensic reason connected with the criminal trial (i.e a second opinion autopsy or similar exercise) why the parents had been reluctant.

The Court was appraised of a letter from father’s counsel in criminal proceedings raising just that suggestion, but this is confused rather because there were representations from his criminal solicitor to a rather different effect. In any event, the Court was not satisfied that arranging a funeral would interfere with the parents right to a fair criminal trial.

In a postscript, the Court notes that the funeral took place and thankfully both parents attended

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Posted in case law and tagged burial, funeral arrangements, hayden j, inherent jurisdiction, Re K (a child: Deceased) 2017, use of inherent jurisdiction to control funeral arrangements. Bookmark the permalink.

In which MacDonald J asks the question and answers it in paragraph 1 of the judgment

Posted on April 8, 2017 by suesspiciousminds

Which is something that I’d like to see more often.

The question before me is whether the High Court has power, under its inherent jurisdiction, to make a costs funding order against a local authority requiring it to fund legal advice and representation for a parent in wardship proceedings brought by the local authority where that parent has lawfully been refused legal aid. I am satisfied that the answer to that question is ‘no’.

In essence, that question arose because the Local Authority had read some of the previous authorities on radicalisation or alleged radicalisation of children to suggest that they ought to be issued as wardship proceedings (which doesn’t get non-means, non-merits legal aid) rather than care proceedings (which do). That doesn’t feel right, because parents in such cases really do need legal representation.

A scheme so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel was devised (either nobody invited the LA to simply issue an application for care proceedings so that there would be legal aid for the parents or they did and the LA refused, I don’t know), but anyway an intricate scheme was attempted instead.

As you can see, MacDonald J said no to that.

HB v A Local Authority & Another (Wardship Costs funding order) 2017

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2017/524.html

However, MacDonald J clarified that in his mind, there was no obligation for an LA on a radicalisation case to issue solely in wardship and not in care proceedings.

In the circumstances, I am satisfied that, contrary to the view taken by the local authority, neither Hayden J nor the President have sought to lay down a general rule, or purport to give general guidance to the effect that the inherent jurisdiction should be used in preference to care proceedings in all cases of alleged radicalisation.

MacDonald J shoots up in the league table of my estimation by also dissecting the much discussed homily that the ‘powers of the inherent jurisdiction/magical sparkle powers are theoretically limitless’

I am satisfied that the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court does not give the court the power to require a local authority to incur expenditure to fund the legal representation of a litigant in wardship proceedings who has been lawfully refused legal aid in accordance with the statutory legal aid scheme put in place by Parliament.

Whilst the inherent jurisdiction is theoretically unlimited, it is, in reality, constrained by proper limits. In London Borough of Redbridge v SA [2015] 3 WLR 1617 Hayden J observed as follows at [36]:

“The High Court’s inherent powers are limited both by the constitutional role of the court and by its institutional capacity. The principle of separation of powers confers the remit of economic and social policy on the legislature and on the executive, not on the judiciary. It follows that the inherent jurisdiction cannot be regarded as a lawless void permitting judges to do whatever we consider to be right for children or the vulnerable, be that in a particular case or more generally (as contended for here) towards unspecified categories of children or vulnerable adults.”

In R v Central Independent Television Plc [1994] Fam 192 at 207-208 Waite LJ noted:

“The prerogative jurisdiction has shown a striking versatility, throughout its long history, in adapting its powers to the protective needs of children in all kinds of different situations. Although the jurisdiction is theoretically boundless, the courts have nevertheless found it necessary to set self-imposed limits upon its exercise for the sake of clarity and consistency, and of avoiding conflict between child welfare and other public advantages.”

Within this context, I am satisfied that the limits that are properly imposed on the exercise of the inherent jurisdiction for the sake of clarity and consistency, and of avoiding conflict between child welfare and other public advantages in this case are those that must be applied when considering the nature and extent of the court’s jurisdiction to order a public authority to incur expenditure. As Lord Sumption pointed out in Prest v Petrodel Resources Ltd [2013] 2 AC 415 at [37], courts exercising family jurisdiction do not occupy a desert island in which general legal concepts are suspended or mean something different. Imposing the limits that I am satisfied must apply, I regret that I cannot accept the submission of Mr Hale and Mr Barnes that the inherent jurisdiction of this court is wide enough to encompass a power to order a public authority to incur expenditure in order to fund legal representation in wardship proceedings for a parent who does not qualify for legal aid because that parent does not satisfy the criteria for a grant of legal aid laid down by Parliament, notwithstanding the considerable benefits that would accrue to the parent, and to the child, from such funding.

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Posted in case law, inherent jurisdiction, Uncategorized and tagged 2017 EWHC 524 Fam, hb v a local authority wardship costs funding orders 2017, inherent jurisdiction, MacDonald J, magical sparkle powers, no principle that radicalisation cases should only be issued under wardship, radicalisation. Bookmark the permalink.

Keep feeling Vaccination

Posted on February 12, 2017 by suesspiciousminds

And so the conversation turned, until the sun went down

This is a High Court case involving parents who were already in care proceedings, who did not want their child to be vaccinated. (The decision not to vaccinate was not the reason for the care proceedings, and I think it’s unlikely that it would be considered threshold criteria.)

It helpfully gathers all of the other authorities and principles on vaccination, so although it is a case that turns on its facts (it is not authority for the Court always will or always won’t order vaccination to go ahead), it is useful if it comes up again. It also raises interesting philosophical questions about State intervention and parental autonomy.

Re SL (Permission to vaccinate) 2017

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2017/125.html

SL was seven months old, and one of four siblings within care proceedings. He was the subject of an Interim Care Order.

The local authority now applies under the inherent jurisdiction for a declaration that it is in SL’s best interests for the local authority to be given permission to arrange for him to receive the Haemophilus Influenza Type b (Hib) vaccine (hereafter, the ‘Hib’ vaccine) and the pneumococcal conjugate (PCV) vaccine (hereafter the ‘PCV’ vaccine) in circumstances where the mother objects to this course of action.

It is something of a law geek pleasure to see that the Dr in the case was a Dr De Keyser, and the advocates in the case would be made of stronger stuff than me if they avoided any temptation to fall into the ‘you say de keyser, I say de Geezer’ dialogue from the Supreme Court article 50 case.

The mother’s opposition to the vaccination was because she considered that her older children had suffered adverse reactions to their own vaccinations

The mother’s opposition to SL being given the Hib vaccine and the PCV vaccine is based primarily on adverse reactions to being so immunised that she states that her other children have undergone in the past. Professor Kroll was accordingly also asked to consider whether there is anything in the older children’s medical records that causes him concern regarding SL receiving the disputed immunisations. Professor Kroll, being careful to note that the abbreviated medical records provided to him may not be complete, makes clear that in none of the records he reviewed relating to SL’s siblings detail any significant adverse reaction to vaccination in general or to Hib or PCV vaccination in particular in any of the children. Professor Kroll further opines that even had there been evidence in the medical records of some reaction, this would not, in general, constitute a medical contraindication to vaccinating SL.
Within the foregoing context, Professor Kroll concludes that there is no medical reason why SL ought not to have the vaccinations in issue according to the UK immunisation schedule. He further concludes that withholding the Hib and PCV vaccines for SL would mean deliberately maintaining his vulnerability, which is at its maximum given his present age, to two very serious infections which are major causes of infection, including bacterial meningitis. Professor Kroll is clear that whilst not providing total protection, a full course of vaccination provides a “very substantial degree” of protection against these infections. He concludes that, in his expert medical opinion, SL needs to be immunised without delay and to receive booster immunisations at the appropriate time.

The LA argued that the Court should use their ~~inherent jurisdiction~~ but they meant “Magical Sparkle Powers TM” to direct that the child should have vaccinations

On behalf of the local authority, Ms Markham QC and Ms Georges submit that the local authority should be given permission to ensure that SL receives the Hib vaccine and the PCV vaccine, the administration of such vaccines being in his best interests. Developing this submission, in particular Ms Markham QC and Ms Georges argue that:

(a) The local authority acknowledges the mother’s views regarding the immunisation of SL. The local authority further recognises that the declaration it seeks trespasses on the mother’s Art 8 right to respect for her private and family life insofar as the decision whether or not to immunise a child is ordinarily a function of the exercise of parental responsibility.

(b) On the evidence before the court however, the balance of risk is clear. Namely, the expert evidence indicates clearly that the risk attendant on giving the vaccines to SL are outweighed by the risks of not giving them to him, in particular when regard is had to the likely gravity of the consequences of the former when compared to potential gravity of the consequences of the latter.

(c) Moreover, on the evidence before the court, the decision whether to immunise SL against Hib and pneumococcal infections is not a finely balanced one. Rather, it is plain on the evidence before the court that vaccination is in his best interests.

(d) Had the local authority received further information or evidence suggesting that there was some doubt, or a finer balance with respect to the question of whether SL should receive the vaccines in issue, the local authority may have changed its position. However, no such information or evidence has materialised notwithstanding the directions of the court.

The mother’s legal team made these submissions

Ms Connolly QC and Ms Gill made the following submissions on behalf of the mother:

(a) Applications for a declaration that it is in the child’s best interests to receive vaccinations are rare. In respect of the decision whether or not to vaccinate a child, parents are accorded a significant degree of autonomy by the State. Ordinarily, a parent in the position of the mother would get to decide whether to have a child immunised as a function of the exercise of that parent’s parental responsibility and would not be brought to court if the parental decision were that the vaccinations should not be given.

(b) The mother relies on three alleged instances of her older children attending hospital following what the mother contends were adverse reactions to immunisation. Whilst the mother has not produced the records associated with these attendances (or, it must be observed, evidence that such records were requested but unavailable), and whilst none of the asserted instances are referred to in the records reviewed by Professor Kroll, she asserts to the court that VL suffered a swollen leg, that DL suffered an ear infection and the CL developed a rash.

(c) The mother’s objections, and the extent to which they are reasonable, must be viewed in the context of the particular matters with which these proceedings are concerned, albeit matters wholly unrelated to the issue of immunisation, and in the context of the SL not being in her care, which factors heighten the mother’s concerns regarding the administration of the vaccines to SL in the context of the alleged adverse reactions experienced by SL’s siblings.

(d) Whilst the consequences of SL catching the diseases, which the respective vaccines are designed to protect against are potentially grave, risk of SL catching the diseases against which the vaccines protect is low, as is the risk that the diseases will have a grave outcome if SL were to catch them.

(e) Within this context, the mother’s considered decision with respect to the vaccination of SL should be respected by the court and the application of the local authority dismissed having regard to the legal principles applicable to that application.

On behalf of the child

On behalf of SL, Mr Tughan QC and Ms Piccos submit that it is plainly in SL’s best interests for the outstanding vaccinations to be given to him. As does the local authority, on behalf of SL Mr Tughan QC and Ms Piccos recognise that a parent is, ordinarily, accorded a significant degree of autonomy by the State in deciding in the exercise of their parental responsibility whether to vaccinate a child. However, in circumstances where there is a dispute between those holding parental responsibility for SL (namely, the mother and the local authority) such that the court is required to determine that dispute by reference to SL’ best interests, Mr Tughan QC and Ms Piccos submit that the evidence before the court indicates that the balance of risk falls firmly in favour of SL receiving the vaccinations on the UK Immunisation Schedule that he has not received to date.
With respect to the weight to be attached to the views of the mother, Mr Tughan QC and Ms Piccos submit that the court must consider these views through the prism of the aspects of the mother’s personality identified in the expert evidence in the 2014 proceedings, specifically an obsessive compulsive personality disorder with schizoid personality traits, paranoid personality features and narcissistic personality features.

I have an unusual position here. My position is that of course children should be vaccinated, and that the scare stories about vaccination lack any proper evidential rigour. However, my position is also that parents have the capacity to make decisions about their children and their medical treatment even if those decisions are ones that others might consider reckless or stupid or foolhardy. I don’t see that the parent should lose that capacity and have it taken away from them at an INTERIM stage. It might be different if the Court conclude the care proceedings and make final orders meaning that the child will be cared for elsewhere during the remainder of their childhood. But I’d have said that here, autonomy trumps my view that vaccination benefits children, and society. I would possibly draw a distinction where the child is being denied medical treatment by a parent’s decision which is causing the child pain, harm, suffering or puts their life in danger. But that wasn’t the case here – vaccination would protect the child from a possible future risk, but this child was in no imminent danger. That’s just my own personal view, which is worth nothing at all, but just to let you know where I’m coming from.

The law

As Ms Connolly QC and Ms Gill point out, applications of this nature are rare and there are only a limited number of reported decisions concerning the issue of immunisation.
In Re C (Welfare of Child: Immunisation) [2003] 2 FLR 1054, a case which considered a dispute between two parents with parental responsibility within the context of the framework provided by s 8 of the Children Act 1989, Sumner J held that the children concerned should receive immunisations appropriate to their age against the wishes of the mother but in line with the recommendation of the expert medical evidence before the court (which in that case included a report from Dr Kroll instructed by CAFCASS Legal). Sumner J’s decision was upheld on appeal. In in Re C (Welfare of Child: Immunisation) [2003] 2 FLR 1095, Thorpe LJ rejected the repeated categorisation of the course of immunisation as non-essential invasive treatment and considered it to be more correctly categorised as preventative healthcare. Within this context, he observed that:

“[16] The apparent freedom of each [parent] to act alone is not, however, unfettered. As Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss P said in the case of Re J (Specific Issue Orders: Child’s Religious Upbringing and Circumcision) [2000] 1 FLR 571 at 577D:

‘There is, in my view, a small group of important decisions made on behalf of a child which, in the absence of agreement of those with parental responsibility, ought not to be carried out or arranged by one parent carer although she has parental responsibility under s 2(7) of the Children Act 1989. Such a decision ought not to be made without the specific approval of the court. Sterilisation is one example. The change of a child’s surname is another.’

[17] In that case the court held that the circumcision of the child should only be carried out where the parents agree or where a court, in settling the dispute between them, decides that the operation is in the best interests of the child. In my opinion this appeal demonstrates that hotly contested issues of immunisation are to be added to that ‘small group of important decisions’.

[18] Of course where the obligation falls on the court to decide such an issue the court must apply the child’s welfare as its paramount consideration (s 1(1) of the Children Act 1989) and also have regard to the s 1(3) checklist.”

At first instance in Re C (Welfare of Child: Immunisation) Sumner J made clear that he had had regard to the wide scope for parental opposition to medical intervention in respect of a child, which he summarised as ranging from obvious cases where the objection would be widely regarded as having no validity in child welfare terms to cases where there is scope for genuine debate on the issue. Within this context, Sumner J acknowledged a parent’s right to choose whether they accepted medical advice to have their children immunised and that immunisation was a subject of genuine public debate. Sumner J further made clear that his decision should not be seen as a general approval of immunisation for children and that each case is fact specific.
In Re A, B, C and D (Welfare of Children: Immunisation) [2011] EWHC 4033 (Fam), Theis J considered the issue of vaccinations in the context of children who were the subject of final care orders, where the dispute was between the local authority, who shared parental responsibility under those orders, and the parents with parental responsibility as to whether the children should be vaccinated. Within this context, Theis J proceeded to determine the question under the auspice of the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court. She concluded the children in that case should be vaccinated. Theis J articulated the following applicable legal principles:

“[9] There is no dispute between the parties as to the law. Once the inherent jurisdiction is invoked the welfare of the child is the paramount consideration.

[10] The Court of Appeal in Re J (A Minor) (Wardship: Medical Treatment) [1991] 1 FLR 366 considered the future medical management of a severely brain-damaged premature baby with a considerably shortened life expectancy. Lord Donaldson MR said at 370 ‘…The court, when exercising the parens patriae jurisdiction, takes over the rights and duties of the parents, although this is not to say that the parents will be excluded from the decision-making process. Nevertheless, in the end, the responsibility for the decision whether to give or to withhold consent is that of the court alone.’

[11] In this case the dispute is the exercise of parental responsibility as between the parents and the Local Authority. I have been referred to a number of cases that look at how the parent’s views should be considered by the court. In Re Z (A Minor)(Freedom of Publication) [1996] 1 FLR 191 Sir Thomas Bingham MR said at 217 B-C:

‘I would for my part accept without reservation that the decision of a devoted and responsible parent should be treated with respect. It should certainly not be disregarded or lightly set aside. But the role of the court is to exercise an independent and objective judgment. If that judgment is in accord with that of the devoted and responsible parent, well and good. If it is not, then it is the duty of the court, after giving due weight to the view of the devoted and responsible parent, to give effect to its own judgment. That is what it is there for. Its judgment may of course be wrong. So may that of the parent. But once the jurisdiction of the court is invoked its clear duty is to reach and express the best judgment it can’.

In Re T (Wardship: Medical Treatment) [1997] 1 FLR 502 Butler Sloss P said at 509 that

‘…it is clear that when an application under the inherent jurisdiction is made to the court the welfare of the child is the paramount consideration. The consent or refusal of consent of the parents is an important consideration to weigh in the balancing exercise to be carried out by the judge. In that context the extent to which the court will have regard to the view of the parent will depend upon the court’s assessment of that view. But as Sir Thomas Bingham MR said in Re Z, the court decides and in doing so may overrule the decision of a reasonable parent’.

[12] The court also has to carefully consider Article 8 of the European Convention and, in particular, consider whether what is proposed is a justified and proportionate interference with family life.”

Within the context of the last point elucidated by Theis J concerning rights under Art 8 of the ECHR, Art 24 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child provides that States parties to that Convention recognise the right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health and, within that context, imposes on States parties an obligation to pursue full implementation of that right, including the taking of appropriate measures to combat disease.
The most recent decision on immunisation appears to be a further decision of Theis J in the case of F v F (MMR Vaccine) [2014] 1 FLR 1328. In that case, Theis J made the following important observation in relation to cases of this nature at [21]:

“This is an issue concerning the exercise of parental responsibility that in most circumstances is negotiated between the parents and their decision put into effect. Parents often have to make decisions for children to meet their welfare needs, as Ms Vivian observed that is ‘what parenting is about’. As with many aspects of the exercise of parental responsibility, in particular as children get older, it will often require discussion and explanation by the parents of their decision to their children which may be against their wishes and feelings. This has not been possible in this case as the parents disagree and the court has been asked to step in to make the decision. The court can only make decisions on the evidence that it has in each particular case and by considering the welfare needs of each child. By doing so in this case the court does not in any way dictate how this issue should be decided in other situations; each case is fact specific. This case is only concerned with the welfare needs of these children.”

Thus, where there is a dispute between those holding parental responsibility (whether as between parents or between parents and a local authority holding a care order) as to whether such a vaccination or vaccinations should take place the court has jurisdiction to determine the dispute. In determining the question before the court, the welfare of the child is the paramount consideration of the court. Within this context, the court must accord appropriate weight to the views of the parent or parents having assessed those views and must exercise an independent and objective judgment on the basis of the totality of the evidence before it, including, but not limited to, the expert evidence.
In this case the court is concerned with the issue of vaccinations in the context of children who are the subject of care orders and thus the dispute is between the local authority sharing parental responsibility for the child and the parent with parental responsibility. In the circumstances where SL is in the care of the local authority, by virtue of s 9(1) of the Children Act 1989 the local authority cannot apply for a specific issue order with respect to the issue of vaccination. Further, given the gravity of the issue in dispute, it is not appropriate for the local authority simply to give its consent to immunisation pursuant to the provisions of s 33(3) of the Children Act 1989 on the basis of its shared parental responsibility for SL under the interim care order (see A Local Authority v SB, AB & MB) [2010] 2 FLR 1203 and Re Jake (Withholding Medical Treatment) [2015] EWHC 2442 (Fam)).
In the circumstances, as in Re A, B, C and D (Welfare of Children: Immunisation) [2011] EWHC 4033 (Fam), and whilst the C2 application made by the local authority on 21 October 2016 is for an order in existing Children Act proceedings, the application the local authority pursues before this court must in fact be an application for relief under the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court. The local authority requires leave to make such an application, which application for leave is to be considered against the criteria set out in s 100(4) of the Children Act 1989. Being satisfied that the relief sought by the local authority does not contravene s 100(2) of the Children Act 1989 and that the criteria for granting leave to the local authority to make an application under the inherent jurisdiction set out in s 100(4) of the Act are met, I granted permission for the local authority to make an application for relief under the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court.

Decision

I acknowledge Ms Connolly QC and Ms Gill’s submission that parents are ordinarily accorded a significant degree of autonomy when deciding whether to have their child immunised as a function of the exercise of their parental responsibility. Whilst, historically, vaccination was compelled by law under the Vaccination Act 1853 and subsequent legislation, vaccination is not now compulsory in this jurisdiction, the Vaccination Act 1898 having introduced an exception allowing parents who did not believe vaccination was efficacious or safe to obtain a certificate of exemption (introducing the concept of the “conscientious objector” into English law) and the National Health Service Act 1946 having thereafter repealed the compulsory vaccination laws in their entirety. However, I cannot accept Ms Connolly QC and Ms Gill’s submission that, ordinarily, a parent in the position of the mother (my emphasis) would get to decide whether to have a child immunised as a function of the exercise of her parental responsibility.
The fact that this court is required to decide whether SL should be immunised is, in this case, a function of a dispute between those who hold of parental responsibility for SL, namely the mother and the local authority (the identity of SL’s father not being known). Where there is such a dispute the court is under an obligation to determine that dispute in accordance with the legal principles articulated above. That determination is not an example of overreaching by the State into an area of parental choice but, rather, is an example of the court discharging its obligation to ensure the welfare of the child is safeguarded in circumstances where those charged with meeting the child’s welfare needs cannot agree on how that end is best achieved. Again, as Theis J noted in Re A, B, C and D (Welfare of Children: Immunisation), in Re Z (A Minor)(Freedom of Publication) [1996] 1 FLR 191 Sir Thomas Bingham MR said at 217 B-C:

“I would for my part accept without reservation that the decision of a devoted and responsible parent should be treated with respect. It should certainly not be disregarded or lightly set aside. But the role of the court is to exercise an independent and objective judgment. If that judgment is in accord with that of the devoted and responsible parent, well and good. If it is not, then it is the duty of the court, after giving due weight to the view of the devoted and responsible parent, to give effect to its own judgment. That is what it is there for. Its judgment may of course be wrong. So may that of the parent. But once the jurisdiction of the court is invoked its clear duty is to reach and express the best judgment it can”.

Thus, the fact that parents are ordinarily accorded a significant degree of autonomy when deciding whether to have their child immunised as a function of the exercise of their parental responsibility where there is no dispute between them, and the fact that, accordingly, this issue rarely comes before the court, does not, in circumstances where there is in this case a frank disagreement between her and the local authority as to what is in SL’s best interests, mean that this mother is being somehow singled out as compared to other parents with respect to the issue of vaccination.
The fact that parents are ordinarily accorded a significant degree of autonomy when deciding whether to have their child immunised as a function of the exercise of their parental responsibility where there is no dispute does, however, mean that when the issue has to come before the court, the court must accord proper weight to the views of the parent. I have of course given very careful consideration to the mother’s objections to vaccination. It is not difficult to see how the, albeit unrelated, events with which this court is concerned have focused her mind on the potential risks of vaccination to SL’s wellbeing. The mother has decided that those risks outweigh the risks of not vaccinating SL. A parent is fully entitled to make a decision based on their assessment of the likelihood of infection and how severe that infection might be in terms of outcome.
However, I must and do have regard to the fact that the mother’s evaluation does not accord with the expert medical evidence before the court. Indeed, that medical evaluation reaches a diametrically opposed view. Whilst welfare is a very wide concept, and whilst the principle of best interests means more than just medical best interests, the unchallenged conclusions of the expert instructed to assist the court on the question of immunisation are, necessarily, a powerful pointer towards what is in SL’s best interests on the question of immunisation. I must also have regard to the fact that, whilst the mother submits that her considered view is grounded in her direct experience of adverse reactions in her other children, she has not in any way evidenced the factual basis she contends grounds her reasoned evaluation of the risks on this basis, despite being given every opportunity to do so. These matters significantly reduce the weight I am able to attach to the mother’s views in respect of the vaccination of SL as against the evidence of the expert.
Lastly in respect of the mother’s views, whilst I note the submissions of Mr Tughan QC and Ms Piccos regarding the impact of the expert opinion in the 2014 proceedings regarding the mother’s personality traits, in circumstances where I have not heard evidence on how those matters may impact on the mother’s views on the subject matter presently before the court, I make clear that I have not taken account of those matters when evaluating the mother’s views and the weight to attach to them.
Within the foregoing context, having regard to all of the evidence before the court and evaluating the position by reference to the principle that SL’s welfare is the court’s paramount consideration, I am satisfied that it is in SL’s best interests to receive the outstanding Hib and PCV vaccines.
Finally, I have, as I must, paid careful regard to the Art 8 right of the mother to respect for her family life. A decision by the court (as a public authority pursuant to s 6(3)(a) of the Human Rights Act 1998) to authorise the immunisation of SL in the face of the mother’s objection, and in circumstances where parents are ordinarily accorded a significant degree of autonomy by the State when deciding whether to have their child immunised as a function of the exercise of their parental responsibility where there is no dispute, constitutes an interference in the mother’s Art 8 right to respect for family life. For that interference to be lawful it must be justified by reference to the terms of Art 8(2). Having regard to the evidence set out above, I am satisfied that the interference in the mother’s right to respect for family life under Art 8 constituted by a decision of this court to authorise the immunisation of SL against her wishes is in accordance with the law and necessary in a democratic society in the interests protecting SL’s health and, accordingly, is a justified and proportionate interference. I am reinforced in this conclusion by the fact that a decision to authorise the immunisation of SL accords with his right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health under Art 24 of the UNCRC.

CONCLUSION

For the reasons I have given, I am satisfied that it is appropriate in this case to make a declaration under the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court that it is in SL’s best interests for the local authority to be given permission to arrange for him to receive the Hib vaccine and the PCV vaccine and I do so.
Finally, I make clear that the decision of the court is not a judgment on whether immunisation is a good thing or bad thing generally. Like Sumner J and Theis J before me, I emphasise that the court is not saying anything about the merits of vaccination more widely and does not in any way seek to dictate how this issue should be approached in other situations. This judgment is concerned solely with an evaluation of one child’s best interests based on the very particular circumstances of this case and on the evidence that is available to the court.
That is my judgment.

I think this case was rightly decided on the law as it stands. I’m not sure I’m happy with the law as it stands. Here we have a position where a parent who is not in care proceedings gets to say yay or nay to vaccinations and their decision will be sacrosanct, but a parent who is in care proceedings (perhaps with allegations of threshold which are not finally proven) does not have that same right. I think the right thing for the child was to be vaccinated, but I think as ever with magical sparkle powers, the Court does things with the very best of intentions which end up being the foundation for the next step away from autonomy, and the next step becomes foundation for the one after.

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Posted in case law and tagged 2017 EWHC 125, inherent jurisdiction, MacDonald J, magical sparkle powers, medical treatment, Re SL (Permission to vaccinate) 2017, vaccination. Bookmark the permalink.

Woman kept in a cage

Posted on September 12, 2016 by suesspiciousminds

This case, involving an 18 year old woman who had lived in England until she was nearly 17 and then went to live with her father in Saudi Arabia, attracted a lot of press attention – the headline of this piece is how it was portrayed in a lot of the Press coverage. The story was that this woman was locked up by her father, to keep her away from men, and was locked up in a cage – the High Court made orders that she be released (although with an acknowledgment that there was nothing the English Court could do if the father didn’t comply)

The case is now reported, so we can see the facts. Al Jeffery v Al Jeffery (Vulnerable Adult : British Citizen) 2016

Not “JEFFREY” – Al-Jeffrey
(But on fleek to find a Rainbow picture that has a court vibe. Yes. I am aware that UK Judges don’t use gavels)

(Let’s be honest, when the other members of Rainbow zipped up Zippy’s mouth, it is hard not to see that as a deprivation of Zippy’s liberty)

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2016/2151.html

In a similar way to the “woman who sparkled” case, once again, the Press don’t come out of it too well – they had access to this information, and of course used it to doorstep the woman’s relatives. Stay classy, San Diego.

I am aware that this has led to considerable publicity in print and online, much of it under a headline “Woman kept in a cage” or words to that effect, the accuracy of which I will later address. I was told (and if it is true, I regret it) that this led in turn to press harassing members of the family in Wales

The ‘cage’ element is obviously the major motif of the story, but there is perhaps more to that than one might think from the Press coverage

The “cage”

I refer under a discrete heading to the issue of a “cage” because I am aware that this has given rise to some rather sensational headlines in the media. Further, in two national newspapers last Saturday (it may have been in more) I myself saw large colour pictures of the photograph now at bundle p.C84. It is the case that Amina herself has referred to her being kept “in a cage” or “in a massive cage”. This may have led headline writers and/or their readers to visualise that she was being kept actually in a cuboid cage of the type that an animal might be kept in with some form of bars all around and on top of it. That is not what happened; and the purpose of this section of this judgment is to create some objectivity and proportionality, and to describe as best I can what appears actually to have happened. I stress, however, that I have not heard any oral evidence and I have only seen the two photographs at pp.C84 and 85.
Within the father’s flat there were two vertical barred panels. One, now seen at p.84, is yellow. It is a large metal framework of bars upon which is affixed, probably by welding, a metal diamond shaped lattice grille. Each diamond shape in the lattice is smaller than an adult hand. It is the sort of security structure that could be fixed over windows or doors to prevent entry, or could be used as a security partition in, for instance, a store room. It is a form of caging, but not itself a cage. The other, now seen at p.C85, is, in the photograph, a mid-brown colour. It is roughly the size and shape of a full height vertical door. It consists of a hinged metal frame with metal vertical bars through which an adult could not squeeze. It is the sort of security structure that is occasionally seen as an added security door or gate outside a front door, or could be used as a security door or gate in a corridor. It, too, is caging, but not itself a cage.
The father admits that both these structures were affixed within his flat. He says through Mr. Scott-Manderson that the yellow lattice grille is simply affixed over external windows to prevent Amina from shouting out to the street below, the flat being on the fourth floor. From the appearance in the photograph at p.84 I am sceptical about this. Amina herself is in the foreground, with the grille beyond her, so the windows could not be in the foreground but off the photograph. Beyond the grille there does, indeed, appear to be a wooden framework which appears to contain glass panes, but they do not have the appearance of external windows. They do have the appearance of an internal glazed screen or partition, like a “room divider”. I say that, because it appears from the photograph that in part of the area beyond the grille there is a hanging cupboard or something similar, and above that the appearance of artificial electric light shining through from beyond. The father says that the glass panes are, indeed, external windows and that the light is merely a reflection from a light within the room. The father says that the purpose of the brown barred door or gate seen at p.C85 was, indeed, to restrict Amina’s access to parts of the flat, including the front door, but that it was removed several months ago. He describes it as a “barrier partition”.
On the father’s own account, the purpose of both these structures was to restrict Amina, whether from access to parts of the flat and the front door, or from simply looking or calling out of the window. Further, the father does admit that when he himself leaves the flat to go to his part time work he does lock her in. I conclude that Amina was not literally in a cage, but that her freedom of movement was, and is, admittedly constrained in a way that I would regard as severe, having regard to her age and full capacity. She was, and, so far as I am aware, still is, deprived of her liberty and could be described as “caged”, although not “in a cage”.

It reads more as being in a room that had a barred window and that she was not permitted to leave the home and had very restricted access to the outside world – as Holman J says, she was deprived of her liberty and could be described as being caged, but she was not ‘in a cage’

[Google image has let me down here – I really wanted a picture of Andromeda from Clash of the Titans (1981) in her gilded cage that Calibos was keeping her in. With a vulture jailer, no less, who would pick up the cage in his beak and carry her off… But no joy. Bah. Anyway, here’s a picture of her as she is awaiting for Poseidon to “UNLEASH THE KRAKEN” and her liberty is definitely being deprived]

There was no doubt in my mind aged 11 that I wanted to rescue this lady

The Judge had made as part of his order that the father must allow his daughter to speak to her solicitor in confidence to provide instructions. That did not happen

Notwithstanding the father’s position as recited in the order and summarised above, the order made three orders, each qualified as being “without prejudice to the issue of jurisdiction”: [i] continuing forced marriage protection orders; [ii] for the immediate return of Amina to England and Wales; and [iii] directing the father to make Amina available for an interview at the British Consulate prior to the fact finding hearing. By the time of the next directions hearing on 5 July 2016, Amina and the father were represented respectively by Mr. Henry Setright QC and Mr. Marcus Scott-Manderson QC who represent them again at this hearing. The order recited that the court had determined that “arrangements must be made for [Amina] to give instructions without fetter or any perception of fetter to her solicitors privately and confidentially” at the British Consulate in Jeddah. Paragraph 15 of the order itself ordered the father to facilitate the attendance of Amina at the consulate “… in order to enable her to speak privately and confidentially to her solicitors from those premises, for the purpose of giving instructions for, and approving, the statement” which another part of the same order ordered Amina to file and serve. I will for convenience refer to that particular provision of the order with regard to attendance at the consulate as “the paragraph 15 order”. Overarchingly, the order of 5 July repeated by reference the order to cause the immediate return of Amina to England and Wales.
The father has not returned Amina to England and Wales and has not complied with the paragraph 15 order. As a result, Miss Hutchinson has not been able to speak privately and confidentially and without fetter or any perception of fetter to Amina, and she has not in fact been able to communicate at all with Amina since June 2016. As to the father’s non-compliance, Mr. Scott-Manderson said at the hearing that:

“The father consciously decided in breach of paragraph 15 not to take her to, or make her available at, the consulate, although he knew all the detailed arrangements which had been made and no excuse or explanation (e.g. ill health, car breakdown etc.) is put forward. There is an impasse.”

The result was that the fact finding element of the hearing which had been fixed for last week was completely ineffective. Mr. Setright and Miss Hutchinson have no recent instructions from their client. They have no “proof of evidence” from her. They have been unable to take her through, or seek her instructions upon, the several statements and exhibits filed by or on behalf of the father. And, of course, they have been unable to prepare any statement from her. The father did, as required by another paragraph of the order of 5 July 2016, take Amina to the Hilton Hotel in Jeddah last Monday at the start of the hearing, from which evidence was to be given by each of them by video link (or, as I was told on the day, by Skype) to the Royal Courts of Justice. However, Mr. Setright was, in my view quite rightly, unwilling to embark on any consideration of oral evidence in those circumstances. It is elementary that a client is not, as it were, put into the witness box blind. It is elementary that an advocate does not cross-examine without having his own client’s instructions as to what the case is. There were in any event no safeguards of any kind as to the circumstances of Amina in the hotel or what pressures, influence or “fetter” she might be under. For these reasons, too, I myself would in any event have been quite unwilling to embark upon the projected “fact finding” exercise.

I wish, therefore, to make crystal clear that the reason I did not, and could not, embark upon the “fact finding” that had been scheduled for this hearing was, and is, entirely because of the conscious decision of the father not to comply with the paragraph 15 order. It is his responsibility, not mine, that I am impelled to decide the outcome of this hearing on a consideration of the documents, untested and un-supplemented by any oral evidence. Precisely because that evidence is lacking, I do not by this judgment make any considered judicial finding as to any of the disputed facts. I merely record them, although I must comment upon them.
Although the father consciously did not comply with the paragraph 15 order, with its more rigorous terms and safeguards and the express purpose of enabling unfettered communication with Miss Hutchinson, he had complied with the earlier order of 12 May to the extent of permitting Amina to have a meeting at the Hilton Hotel in Jeddah with a British consular representative, Amna Ghulam. The father personally was not in the room. However, he insisted on a lady being present who has been described during the hearing as “the father’s representative”. That lady made a note, which has since been typed up in English and is now at bundle p.C165, and she has made a statement that her note is accurate. In view of para.6(b) of the order of 5 July 2016, I will omit parts which make or include allegations against individuals other than the father who is now the sole respondent to these proceedings, but the note requires to be read in full by any court subsequently engaged in this case.

“Note: Amina appears dishevelled, strangely unlike her sister covered with a niqab. She appears to have written ‘kill’ or ‘killing’ on her right wrist with blue ink and red or pink ink.

When asked what were her (Amina’s) future plans, if she wanted to stay in Saudi Arabia or if she wanted to leave the country, Amina responded that she would like to leave the country but her family are not allowing her to leave.

Amina stated that she has been locked up in her room for over a year.

Amina stated whilst the British court case is continuing in the UK her family have informed her that she will only get her freedom (study and work) only after the case in the UK closes.

… Since [she dropped the last case] Amina stated she was abused and locked up, which is why she would like to return to the UK.

When asked why is her older sister allowed to have a phone and she is dressed well and not covered, Amina responded that two years ago she kissed a guy (in KAUST [a university in Saudi Arabia]) who proposed to her twice but her family refused him.

Amina stated her family manipulated her younger sister even before she came to Saudi Arabia that Amina is an evil girl and that she should not speak to Amina. Amina continued to say that when her younger sister came to Saudi she already had a bad image of [Amina] but when she came to Saudi Arabia she found a locked up girl with a shaved head.

…

… [Her father] is the one who locks me up. And the reason for that is because she had kissed a guy two years ago.

Amina was asked if she is still locked up. She responded that the metal bars are no longer in her room but she is still locked up in the house and she is not allowed to use the phone or internet.

…

… Amina confirmed that the reason why she ran away and build a case … is because she wants to study, work and get married.

When asked if she wants to get married by her way or her family way, Amina responded that she does not care who she marries, she wants to get out in any way possible …

When asked why she chose to come back and live with her family after running away and not choose the shelter, Amina responded that she did not have the choice, the police threatened her with jail if she did not return to her father. She continued to say that her father has the choice to take her to prison and that he always threatens her with it, she also added that the Saudi police advised her father to take her to prison after hearing what she did.

Amina stated that she would like to inform the judge that she is put in a difficult situation because she will get in trouble with her family if the case does not end. But at the same time she does not trust her family.

When asked to clarify what she wanted, Amina responded that her family wants her to say that she lied about her accusations. She stated that it is not true. And that the judge should know that she is not lying. Amina is afraid that if the case continues her father will continue to hit her.

When asked if her father still hits her Amina responded yes. She stated that her father recently threatened her that if she decides to leave he would take action against her.

Amina continued to say that her father pretends to be cooperative with the Saudi authorities, she stated that he once informed a Saudi judge that if she wanted to complain about him he would take her to the police himself. Amina stated that she had asked her father to take her to the police station after he hit her and strangled her, but he refused.

When asked again if her father hits her, Amina responded yes …

Amina is afraid for her safety if she cannot leave Saudi Arabia. She asked that the court would allow the British Embassy to check up on her every month … She also stated that [she was] prevented from going to the bathroom for one month, she was forced to urinate in a cup. She stated that she would get punished when she used her room as a toilet.

Amina requested to speak with her lawyer.

…

By the end of the meeting Amina had a phone conversation with her lawyer in the UK.

A note was passed under the table to the British representative.”

The conversation with the lawyer in the UK was not with Miss Hutchinson but with her assistant, Mrs. Wendy Ramus. I do not know what was said, being privileged, but in any event it was not the private, confidential and lengthy opportunity to take instructions without fetter which the later paragraph 15 order required. The consular representative, Amna Ghulam, with whom the meeting took place, has supplied to Miss Hutchinson by email her own account of the meeting. The existence of the email has been disclosed to the court and to the father’s lawyers but the contents are stated by Mr. Setright to be privileged, as the intended purpose of the meeting (thwarted by the presence of the father’s representative) had been to provide a conduit for information and instructions from Amina to her solicitor, and her lawyers here (who cannot obtain her instructions) do not consider that they can, or should, waive the privilege. As the father’s representative’s note was, of course, prepared in the first instance for the father, I do not know what else may have been said which the father’s representative decided not to record. Mr. Setright indicated in veiled terms, but in open court, that Amina’s team consider that Amina could be at heightened risk if her father saw the consular representative’s own email. The note of the father’s representative refers at the end to “a note was passed under the table to the British representative”. As I understand it, that note has not itself been transmitted here to London. Photo shots of it made by a mobile phone have been. They are apparently hard to decipher, but in any event Mr. Setright asserts that similar considerations apply to it as to the consular representative’s own email record and they claim privilege. I have not seen it and I do not know what it says.

Far from what was needed, which was the chance for this woman to talk in private with her lawyers, to be able to speak freely and to obtain advice.

It was a very difficult scenario. On the one hand, the Court was looking at someone who was an adult living in another country – a country where rules and law and customs are not exactly the same as ours and the potential of interfering with that sovereign state, and on the other there was a British citizen crying out for help and no prospect of it arriving if the English Courts did not intervene.

Discretion

The question now is whether, in my judicial discretion, I should actually exercise jurisdiction and make an order and, if so, what order. I have, indeed, approached this case with very great caution and circumspection. I have had firmly in mind from first to last the risk of exorbitance. Caution and circumspection obviously do not depend on the length of hearing alone, but I did hear this case over four long days, during which I heard sustained argument from very experienced leading counsel. I have had very considerable “thinking time”, both during the hearing and since, while preparing this judgment. I have in fact moved during the course of the hearing from a starting position in which I openly expressed extreme doubt and reservation whether I should actually exercise a discretion to make an order, to the position (which, anticipating the outcome, I now disclose) that I should do so. In my view, the admitted or core facts of this case all point to Amina being under a constraint from her father which, having regard to her age, is severe. Her father admits to locking her in the flat for several hours when he goes out. He admits that until recently the barred door in the photograph at p.C85 was in position, restricting her access to parts of the flat, including the kitchen. He admits that the yellow grille at p.C84 is still in place, and although he says that its purpose is only to prevent her from shouting out of the window, that in itself is a constraint upon her means of communication with the outside world. As I explained at para.33 above, I am sceptical that that grille is not in fact restricting her movement within the flat as well.
I agree with Mr. Setright that the terms of the document of the Saudi Arabian court dated 12 April 2016 at bundle p.D12 themselves indicate a person under severe constraint. Although now aged 21, she undertakes not to challenge her father’s authority over all her affairs and not to leave the house without his permission. The father’s own evidence in para.15 of his statement dated 16 June 2016 is that if she were to run away, the police, far from offering her protection from her father, would put her in prison. The very recent events in this case, and the father’s refusal to comply with para.15 and to allow Amina even to have unrestricted confidential and secure access to her consul and her own solicitor, vividly illustrate and underline the degree of continuing control and constraint being exercised. Overarchingly, she is under constraint if, at the age of 21, she wishes to leave Saudi Arabia, whether to travel to Britain or anywhere else, and is being prevented by her father from doing so.
In all these ways, Amina is disabled from functioning as an independent adult, not merely just out of childhood at the age of 18, but already aged 21. Amina is a citizen of Saudi Arabia. These constraints may be acceptable and even the norm under the law and culture of Saudi Arabia. But she is also a British citizen, and under the law and culture of Britain they are not. They are, indeed, totally unacceptable, and do represent in the words of Munby J in Re SA “… some significant curtailment of the freedom to do those things which in this country free men and women are entitled to do”. If Amina chooses voluntarily to remain in Saudi Arabia, of which she is a citizen, she must, of course, respect and adhere to the law and culture of that society. But the current constraint is denying to her the right to choose to be British and to live in Britain and to respect, adhere to and be regulated by the law and culture of British society. It is true that she is currently present and habitually resident in Saudi Arabia, but that results from her obedience to the will of her father in 2012. It is accepted that she did not travel there voluntarily and of her own free will.
In my view, the current circumstances are such that this British person does require protection, in the language of Lady Hale and Lord Toulson in Re B at para.60; and she is currently in a peril from which she requires to be “rescued”, in the language of Lord Sumption in that case at para.87. Nevertheless, I must exercise great caution and not be exorbitant. There are other factors which weigh in favour of exercising jurisdiction. They include that not only is she British, but she was born and brought up and educated in Britain until the age of almost 17. This is a very significant factor. I would take a very different view of this case if Amina had been born and lived her whole life in Saudi Arabia but happened to be British by descent. Her mother and several of her siblings currently still live in Britain and, although she may be estranged from them, their presence here still indicates the continuing connections between this family and Britain.
However, there are also powerful factors which militate against exercising jurisdiction. Her father is Saudi and Saudi alone. She herself has dual nationality. The Hague Convention on Certain Questions Relating to the Conflict of Nationality Laws done at the Hague on 12 April 1930 provides at Article 4 that “a State may not afford diplomatic protection to one of its nationals against a State whose nationality such person also possesses”. Britain is a signatory to that Convention, although Saudi Arabia is not. The view of the British Government, expressed in para.3.2 of its Home Office Nationality Instructions, is that:

“Commonly known as the ‘Master Nationality Rule’, the practical effect of this Article [viz Article 4] is that where a person is a national of, for example, two States (A and B), and is in the territory of State A, then State B has no right to claim that person as its national or to intervene on that person’s behalf …”

This may in part explain the position taken by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in their letter of 14 December 2015 that “Amina is a dual national … there is little that we can do to assist her”. But I am being asked to make an order against the father personally. I am not being asked to “afford diplomatic protection” or in any way to act “against” the State of Saudi Arabia in the language of Article 4, and there is no question of my doing so. In any event, in Re A the child concerned had dual British and Pakistani nationality and that was not suggested by the judgment of Baroness Hale to represent an obstacle to the exercise of jurisdiction, save to the extent that dual nationality was one of the considerations which had been raised by Mr. Setright and referred to in para.64.

The fact that Amina is present and habitually resident in Saudi Arabia undoubtedly militates against the exercise of jurisdiction, but is tempered in this case by the circumstances in which she came to be there: her father’s insistence and command, from which she has since been unable to escape. In Re B at para.59 Lady Hale and Lord Toulson identified “three main reasons” for caution when deciding whether to exercise jurisdiction. First, that to do so may conflict with the jurisdictional scheme applicable between the countries in question. There is no jurisdictional scheme between Britain, or Wales and England and Saudi Arabia. Second, that it may result in conflicting decisions in the two countries. In view of the proceedings in Saudi Arabia in April 2016, this is, of course, a weighty consideration in the present case. As I understand it, however, the “decision” in the Saudi court in April was not so much a decision imposed by the court in the exercise of its own judgment; rather, it was that court expressing its approval of that which the parties themselves had agreed. Whilst Mr. Scott-Manderson argues that Amina’s more appropriate remedy is to make some application of her own to that court, her ability freely to gain access to that court may itself be limited by the constraints, and she certainly has no means with which to fund a lawyer. Further, I regret that I lack confidence that that court would permit and enforce against the father that she is able to return to Britain, since Saudi Arabia does not recognise dual nationality. The court might not, therefore, recognise what might be the fundamental basis of her application, namely her British nationality.
The third reason identified by Lady Hale and Lord Toulson is that it may result in unenforceable orders. In relation to that reason, they said on the facts of that case that “it is possible that there are steps which an English court could take to persuade the respondent to obey the order”, although, so far as I am aware, those steps were not further identified. Enforcement is undoubtedly a significant issue in the present case. Generally, courts do not make orders which they cannot effectively enforce, although almost daily judges of the Family Division do just that in relation to children who have been abducted to countries which are not parties to the Hague Convention on the civil aspects of international child abduction. I accept that there is little or nothing that this court could do to enforce against the father in Saudi Arabia any order which it may make if he was determined not to obey or comply with it. There are no conventions in operation between Wales and England, or Britain and Saudi Arabia. There is no reciprocity. The courts of Saudi Arabia would not even recognise the basis upon which I claim and assert jurisdiction, namely the British nationality of Amina, since the State of Saudi Arabia does not recognise dual nationality and, therefore, her British nationality.
The father has no assets here of which I am aware, unlike in the case of Re B (see para.21 of the judgment of Parker J at [2013] EWHC 3298 (Fam) at the remitted hearing), but that does not preclude the persuasive force of an order, particularly one made after a very full and thorough hearing in which, although not personally present, the father engaged and fully participated and was fully heard throughout. The situation that will pertain after this judgment is very different from the situation that pertained under the earlier orders, many of which were expressed to be “without prejudice to the issue of jurisdiction”. By this judgment the issue of jurisdiction has been resolved. Further, the father himself voluntarily chose to live for many years in Wales; to educate and to bring his children up here; and to subject himself to both the protection of, and the constraints of, the laws of Wales and England and the legal system of Wales and England. His wife, from whom he is not estranged, and several of his children continue to live here. He may later, if not sooner, wish or have reason to visit Wales or England again, but he could not safely do so if he remained in breach of a significant order of this court, for he would be liable to be punished (if still in breach) for his continuing contempt of court.
For all these reasons, I consider that, although the father may ultimately decide to defy any order I make, this court does have considerable moral and also practical “hold” over him. There is no reason why I should assume or suppose that he will not obey any proportionate order which I may make; and I consider that I should proceed on the assumption that he will obey it.
There is one further factor to which I should refer. In Re A at para.65(vi) Baroness Hale referred to the absence of any enquiry being made about how the children in that case were. In Re B at para.86 Lord Sumption referred, rather similarly, to an independent assessment of the situation of the child abroad and said “unless the facts were already clear, that would be the least that a court should do before it could be satisfied that she should be compulsorily returned to this country”. This led Mr. Scott-Manderson to submit that, before making any stronger order, this court should first direct or request some similar assessment of Amina by some appropriate authority in Saudi Arabia. There is, however, the significant difference that Re B concerned a child aged seven by the time of the hearing in the Supreme Court who could not speak for herself. The present case concerns an adult aged 21 who (subject to the constraints) can and does.
Balancing all these considerations, I have come slowly and cautiously, but ultimately very firmly, to the conclusion that I should exercise the jurisdiction and should make such orders as I can to protect Amina. If citizenship means anything at all, it does include the right to seek help and protection and, weighing all those factors, I should not deny help and protection to Amina. To do nothing at all would, in my view, amount to a dereliction towards Amina and in effect just giving up on her.

What order?

The next and final question is what order I should actually make. There was much discussion during the hearing about my simply repeating an order in the terms of para.15, hoping that now that a full hearing has occurred the father would permit a private meeting to take place at the consulate. He has, however, persisted in his position that he will not do so unless the Foreign and Commonwealth Office give a prior written assurance that if Amina were to seek diplomatic protection or “sanctuary” in the consulate, the consulate would not give it to her, but would hand her over to the Saudi authorities of the Ministry of the Interior. I see little point or purpose in repeating a para.15 order. Its main purpose when made on 4 July was to enable instructions to be taken from Amina so that a detailed up to date statement could be prepared for her, and an effective fact finding hearing could take place. That having been thwarted by the father, I am not now willing to set up another projected fact finding hearing in inevitably several months’ time. There has been far too much delay already in proceedings which ultimately concern liberty and which were commenced now almost eight months ago last December.
There has also, incidentally, been far too much expense. I was told by Mr. Setright that the costs and disbursements of Amina, all funded by English legal aid, are already of the order of £50,000. The litigation has not yet cost the father personally anything, since his costs and disbursements are apparently all being funded by or through the Saudi Arabian Embassy, although he may be required later to repay them.
In my view, I should, rather, move directly now to an order against the father personally that he must permit and facilitate the return of Amina, if she so wishes, to Wales or England and pay the air fare. He must at once make freely available to her both her British and her Saudi Arabian passports. She needs the former to enable her freely to enter Britain. She needs the latter to enable her freely to re-enter Saudi Arabia if later she wishes to return there for any purpose. I will specify the date by which Amina must be enabled to return as Sunday 11 September 2016. That allows about five and a half weeks for the father to reflect on this judgment and to make orderly arrangements. I myself will be sitting again here at the Royal Courts of Justice from Monday 12 September 2016, and very shortly after that date this case must be listed again before me. If Amina is, indeed, here, she must attend and I will decide what further orders, if any, should be made. If she is not here, I will similarly decide what further orders should be made or action taken.
As I require Amina personally to attend, that hearing will, in the first instance, be listed in private so she is not initially burdened by the presence of the media. However, at or before the conclusion of the hearing I will in some way (by judgment or by a statement) inform the public and any interested representatives of the media the gist of what has occurred between now and then. I wish to make crystal clear that, apart from requiring her attendance before me at that hearing, if she has indeed voluntarily returned to Wales and England, I do not make any order whatsoever against Amina herself. The purpose is not to order her to do anything at all. Rather, it is to create conditions in which she, as an adult of full capacity, can exercise and implement her own independent free will and freedom of choice. To that end, I will give further consideration with counsel after this judgment to what mechanism can now be established to enable her freely to state, if that be her own free decision and choice, that she does not now wish to avail herself of the opportunity provided by my decision and this order to return to Wales or England.
I conclude this judgment by expressing my sincere thanks to Mr. Setright QC and his junior counsel Mr. Michael Gration, and to Mr. Scott-Manderson QC for their sustained and distinguished written and oral arguments in this case; and to the solicitors on both sides who instruct them.

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Posted in adult social care, case law, inherent jurisdiction, international and tagged 2016 EWHC 2151, adults and inherent jurisdiction, al-jeffery v al-jeffery 2016, forced marriage, holman j, inherent jurisdiction, protection of vulnerable adults. Bookmark the permalink.

The Court’s Magical Sparkle Powers (TM) – can you take a DNA paternity test from a dead man?

Posted on April 21, 2016 by suesspiciousminds

In Spencer V Anderson 2016

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2016/851.html

a Mr David Spencer, now 20 years old, wanted to establish whether the late William Anderson, who had died intestate (without making a will), was his father. William Anderson had provided tissue samples as part of his medical treatment. Could those tissue samples be used to extract DNA, and thus undertake a paternity test? And presumably establish a form of claim against Mr Anderson’s estate.

It is a judgment by Mr Justice Peter Jackson, so it is highly informative and elegant.

The application under s.55A was issued on 18 September 2015. His Honour Judge Duggan made a series of directions, giving the respondents and the hospital the opportunity to make representations, and listing the DNA testing issue for decision. He identified the following questions:

(1) Does the phrase “bodily samples” in section 20(1)(b) Family Law Reform Act 1969 extend to DNA material already extracted?

(2) Alternatively, does the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court extend beyond the ambit of the Family Law Reform Act 1969 to permit comparison of the DNA of an applicant with samples of DNA already extracted from bodily samples of the deceased and kept in storage?

(3) What is the legal basis of paragraph 66 of Mrs Justice Thirlwall’s judgment of Goncharova v Zolotova [2015] EWHC 3061 (QB)?

(4) Does the testing of the DNA already extracted from a deceased person require consent and if so from whom?

(5) Is the refusal of consent by the deceased’s estate capable of creating an adverse inference whether under the Family Law Reform Act 1969 or the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court?

I will consider each of these questions in the course of this judgment.

Damn good set of questions, those.

D FIRST ISSUE: DOES THE FLRA 1969 APPLY?

On behalf of Mr Spencer, Mr Kemp initially sought to argue that a direction might be given under the FLRA. However, in the course of the argument he conceded that this argument could not succeed. In my view, the concession was rightly made for the reasons analysed above, which can be summarised by saying that the FLRA:

governs the taking of samples from living people

makes no provision for samples being taken after death

does not contemplate separate directions for sampling and testing

does not provide for the testing of existing samples

does not provide for the testing of samples that had been taken for reasons other than establishing parentage

requires samples to be collected in accordance with regulations

does not provide for the testing of DNA itself.

Mr Kemp rightly described the difficulties as being insurmountable and accepted that in the circumstances of this case a direction under s.20 is not available to his client.
There being no other legislation in point, I therefore conclude that there is no statutory power to direct post-mortem scientific testing to establish a person’s biological relationships and consequently no statutory power to make a direction for the testing of Mr Anderson’s stored DNA

E SECOND ISSUE: DOES THE HIGH COURT HAVE AN INHERENT POWER TO ORDER TESTING?

On behalf of Mr Spencer, it is argued that there are two possible sources of such a power: Civil Procedure Rules r.25.1 (or its equivalent, Family Procedure Rules r.20.2) or the inherent jurisdiction.

(By “Inherent Jurisdiction” here, everyone means the Court’s “Magical Sparkle Power” (TM), which I have decided should be used from now on, to illustrate just how much of a legal sleight of hand the whole thing is)

The inherent jurisdiction

The inherent jurisdiction of the High Court is a description of the court’s common law powers insofar as they have not been removed or supplanted by statute. In the Court of Appeal in Re F (above) Lord Donaldson MR described the common law as

“… the great safety net which lies behind all statute law and is capable of filling gaps left by that law, if and insofar as those gaps have to be filled in the interests of society as a whole. This process of using the common law to fill gaps is one of the most important duties of the judges. It is not a legislative function or process – that is an alternative solution the initiation of which is the sole prerogative of Parliament. It is an essentially judicial process and, as such, it has to be undertaken in accordance with principle.”

The inherent jurisdiction is therefore a jurisdiction of long-standing that nowadays exists in a number of important contexts. With regard to children, it has been used in a wide variety of creative ways to supplement statutory powers, both through the medium of wardship and otherwise. As recorded in FPR PD 12D, the court can, for example, make orders to restrain publicity, to prevent an undesirable association, to endorse medical treatment, to protect children abducted from abroad and to recover children from abroad. These orders not only affect the individual family members but are also directed towards third parties, either as orders or requests.
More recently, the jurisdiction has been developed to provide remedies for the protection of vulnerable but not legally incapable adults. In Re SK [2004] EWHC 3202 (Fam), Singer J said:

“I believe that the inherent jurisdiction now, like wardship has been, is a sufficiently flexible remedy to evolve in accordance with social needs and social values.”

That manifestation of the jurisdiction was cemented by Munby J in Re SA [2005] EWHC 2942 (Fam) and the Court of Appeal has confirmed that it has survived the enactment of the Mental Capacity Act 2005: see DL v A Local Authority [2012] EWCA Civ 253.

These cases and others concerned the protection of vulnerable individuals at risk of coercion or abuse. At the other end of the scale, the inherent jurisdiction can relate to the court’s power to control its own procedures, as in Bremer Vulkan v. South India Shipping [1981] 1 AC 909, where Lord Diplock said this at 977:

“The High Court’s power to dismiss a pending action for want of prosecution is but an instance of a general power to control its own procedure so as to prevent its being used to achieve injustice. Such a power is inherent in its constitutional function as a court of justice. Every civilised system of government requires that the state should make available to all its citizens a means for the just and peaceful settlement of disputes between them as to their respective legal rights. … The power to dismiss a pending action for want of prosecution in cases where to allow the action to continue would involve a substantial risk that justice could not be done is thus properly described as an “inherent power” the exercise of which is within the “inherent jurisdiction” of the High Court. It would I think be conducive to legal clarity if the use of these two expressions were confined to the doing by the court of acts which it needs must have power to do in order to maintain its character as a court of justice.”

The inherent jurisdiction is plainly a valuable asset, mending holes in the legal fabric that would otherwise leave individuals bereft of a necessary remedy. The present case (DNA testing) might be said to fall between the above examples of the court’s inherent powers (protection of the vulnerable, striking out).
At the same time, the need for predictability in the law speaks for caution to be exercised before the inherent jurisdiction is deployed in new ways. The court is bound to be cautious, weighing up whether the existence of a remedy is imperative or merely desirable, and seeking to discern the wider consequences of any development in the law.

That is the problem with the Court’s Magical Sparkle Power – because it isn’t set down properly in statute what the powers are, and the limitations of those powers, and the constraints for using those powers, it ends up being built on with case after case – extending its reach outwards and upwards, and then each case thereafter says “Well, if Munby J was able to use the Court’s Magical Sparkle Powers to do X, then I can use them to do Y” and the next Judge says “Well, if Colombo J was able to use the Court’s Magical Sparkle Powers to do Y, then I can use them to do Z” and so it goes.

There’s a neat argument against the Court’s Magical Sparkle Power here, which rather appealed to me

Submissions on behalf of Mrs Anderson

Mr Mylonas QC and Ms Street advance the following propositions in relation to the existence of an inherent jurisdiction:

(1) The High Court does not have the power to make any order it wishes; see Hayden J in Redbridge London Borough Council v A [2015] Fam 335:

“The principle of separation of powers confers the remit of economic and social policy on the legislature and on the executive, not on the judiciary. It follows that the inherent jurisdiction cannot be regarded as a lawless void permitting judges to do whatever we consider to be right…”

(2) The court’s powers are limited by s.19(2) of the Senior Courts Act 1981:

“Subject to the provisions of this Act, there shall be exercisable by the High Court—

(a) all such jurisdiction (whether civil or criminal) as is conferred on it by this or any other Act; and

(b) all such other jurisdiction (whether civil or criminal) as was exercisable by it immediately before the commencement of this Act (including jurisdiction conferred on a judge of the High Court by any statutory provision).”

So, the applicant must, but cannot, show that there was jurisdiction to make an order of this kind before the coming into force of the Senior Courts Act.

(3) Paternity testing within litigation is regulated by Part III of the 1969 Act. Any power to make a direction for scientific testing to establish paternity under the inherent jurisdiction was ousted by the Act: Re O (A Minor)(Blood Tests: Constraint) [2000] Fam 139.

In that case, two men had each obtained directions for the testing of a child to establish paternity, but the mothers, with care and control of the child, refused to consent to the testing. Wall J accepted with reluctance that there was no power to compel the mothers to allow testing when the statute required their consent: this soon led to the enactment of s.21(3). At page 151, he stated:

“In my judgment, unattractive as the proposition remains, both the inherent jurisdiction to direct the testing of a child’s blood for the purpose of determining paternity and any consequential power to enforce that direction is entirely overridden by the statutory scheme under Part III of the Family Law Act 1969. If the remedy is to be provided it is, accordingly, for Parliament to provide it.”

It is said that the present position is on all fours with that facing the court in Re O. Although the decision was given nine months before the Human Rights Act came into effect in October 2000, the court showed itself well aware of the rights engaged on all sides.

(4) There are sound policy reasons for the absence of any statutory power to permit testing in the circumstances of this case. DNA testing is an interference of the highest order with the subject’s right to confidentiality and the privacy of their known family members whose genetic relationships will also be revealed by such testing. If the court allows post-mortem DNA testing in the absence of consent, this is likely to discourage patients from providing DNA during medical treatment and encourage those in Mr Spencer’s position to defer making applications until after the death of the alleged father so as to circumvent the absence of consent. If testing in a case such as the present were to be permitted, it ought to be by way of a scheme (i) devised following the kind of consideration, consultation and scrutiny which Parliament but not the High Court can carry out; (ii) which provides for regulation (eg guaranteeing the integrity of samples and testing); and (iii) which provides clear rules which can be easily understood by healthcare professionals, patients, their family members and those who seek testing.

(5) At present, the law is clear: you cannot test samples taken for one purpose for a different purpose without consent. That clarity would be lost if an inherent power was found to exist. The law must be accessible and sufficiently precise to enable the individual to understand its scope and foresee the consequences of his actions: R v Purdy [2010] AC 345 at 390. In the present case, Mr Anderson was deprived of the opportunity to require his samples to be destroyed or of making a will excluding Mr Spencer.

(6) The decision in CM v EJ does not take matters further forward. It was not a case about paternity testing, no arguments were made against the existence of an inherent jurisdiction, and the use of the jurisdiction was consistent with the relevant statutory scheme, not inconsistent with it.

(7) Re H and A is a case in which the power to order testing was not in question. Likewise, the decision in Jaggi concerned the failure to exercise a power that existed, not the question of whether a power existed in the first place.

(8) As Re O demonstrates, the interests of justice alone do not provide a basis for ordering testing where no power to do so has been identified.

(9) Similarly, a series of cases in the analogous field of assisted reproduction show the reluctance of the courts to subvert a carefully-devised statutory scheme.

I happen to agree with all of that, but good luck in ever persuading a Judge that they should make a decision limiting the use of Magical Sparkle Power. You may have picked up from time to time, that I don’t much like the Jedi hand-wave that is Magical Sparkle Power, with Judge’s deciding that they can conjure powers out of thin air to solve a problem. It doesn’t sit well with me in terms of checks and balances.

Anyway, the important thing is that Mr Justice Peter Jackson did not agree with me, or the estate of Mr Anderson (and I don’t think on the law as it stands that was a wrong decision – the problem is, as I alluded to earlier, that the law in relation to Magical Sparkle Power is developing as a series of stepping stone cases, each relying on the one before it to extend the power further, and with no real tackling of the foundations of the earliest stepping stones and whether the Courts were ever given quite the scope of Magical Sparkle Power that they are now using)

Conclusion as to inherent jurisdiction

In my view, the following features are relevant to the existence or non-existence of an inherent power:

(1) Statutory interpretation

Before the enactment of the FLRA, the preponderant judicial opinion was that there was power to direct the taking of blood to establish a child’s paternity, and such orders were on occasion made: see In re L (An Infant) [1968] P 119 and B (BR) v B (J) [1968] P 466.

The FLRA is the only statute concerned with testing for evidence of biological relationships. It is comprehensive in relation to cases falling within its scope: Re O. In that case, the issue that had arisen lay squarely within the scheme of the Act. It fell under what Wall J referred to at 150 as the “rug” of the legislation, or what Hale LJ referred to as the “footprint” in the Court of Appeal in Re R (see paragraph 39 of the House of Lords’ opinions). In contrast, the testing of DNA post-mortem falls distinctly outside the scope of the legislation. The FLRA cannot be read purposively or convention-compliantly so as to cover cases of the present kind. I therefore do not accept that a power to give directions for post-mortem DNA testing has been ousted by the Act.

Nor do I accept that the court’s powers are limited by s.19(2) Senior Courts Act 1981. This formal, descriptive subsection cannot be taken to have defined or circumscribed the powers of the High Court, or to have frozen them as at the date of the legislation. Were it otherwise, the vulnerable adult jurisdiction could not have existed.

There is a legislative void, both in relation to post-mortem paternity testing and in relation to paternity testing using extracted DNA. I accept that in an area of this kind, policy considerations arise which would be better regulated by Parliament than by individual decisions of the court. In one sense, this speaks for judicial reticence. However, there is no indication that Parliament has turned its attention to the situation that arises in the present case, or that it is likely to do so at any early date. This gives rise to the possibility of an indefinite period during which individuals would be left without a remedy.

(2) Consent

Both the FLRA and the HTA (and the HFEA 1990 and 2008, insofar as they may be analogous) regard consent as the central component of lawfulness.

It is necessary, when considering the availability of a remedy after death, to consider the situation that would have arisen in life. The person concerned would have had the right to decide whether or not to participate in paternity testing and to allow his human tissue to be used for that purpose.

Although neither the FLRA nor the HTA apply to extracted DNA as opposed to human tissue, the use of human tissue is a necessary forerunner to the extraction of DNA and similar considerations and sensitivities must apply when DNA testing is being considered.

If the issue related to the post-mortem testing of human tissue (as opposed to DNA), the terms of the HTA would apply. For testing to be lawful, there would have to have been consent from the individual in life or by a relative after death. Or there would have to be a court order.

(3) The public interest

An intervention of the kind suggested in this case might give rise to uncertainty and concern within the medical world and beyond at the possibility that such orders might be made in other cases, or that in effect the door was being opened to post-mortem paternity testing on demand. Although it does not arise in the present case, the prospect of applications for exhumation cannot be regarded as fanciful when one recalls the circumstances in Mortensen and Jaggi, or indeed those of Richard III.

Against this, there is no sign that the present application has caused alarm to the major hospital involved in the present case (indeed it appears to welcome the court’s assistance), or that applications of this kind are likely to be at all numerous, particularly if they could only be heard in the High Court, and thereby be subject to very close scrutiny. The prospect of this limited development in the law affecting the behaviour of the patient population as a whole is likely to be more imaginary than real.

(4) Identity

Knowledge of our biological identity is a central component of our existence. The issue can have consequences of the most far-reaching kind, perhaps above all for those who do not know or are not sure of their parentage. Within our lifetimes, DNA testing has made the truth available. At the same time, it has made all other kinds of evidence almost irrelevant. While it remains possible to reach a conclusion about paternity without scientific tests, the practical and psychological consequences are different. A declaration made without testing is a finding, while the result of a test is a fact.

The contrast can be found in the opinion of Lord Wilberforce in The Ampthill Peerage Case [1977] 1 AC 547 at 569:

“Any determination of disputable fact may, the law recognises, be imperfect: the law aims at providing the best and safest solution compatible with human fallibility and having reached that solution it closes the book.”

While at 573 he said:

“One need not perhaps, on this occasion, face the question whether, when technology or science makes an advance, so as to enable to be known with certainty that which previously was doubtful, such evidence ought to be admitted in order to destroy the binding force of a judgment or of a declaration with statutory force. It may be that within the limits within which a new trial may be ordered and, on the precedents, those limits are comparatively short, such evidence could be admitted for that purpose.”

The European Convention, as interpreted in Jaggi, underscores the importance of the opportunity to discover one’s parentage. Although the Convention cannot on its own create a remedy, it is desirable that our law is consistent with the approach taken in other jurisdictions if that is possible.

(5) The interests of others

It is a peculiar feature of genetic testing that it inescapably has the potential to affect not only the individual being tested but also those to whom he is closely related. Depending on the facts, the rights of surviving relatives may be engaged, but it is difficult to envisage a situation in which the establishment of the truth about biological relationships could amount to an unlawful interference with those rights; at the very least any interference may be necessary and proportionate. The rights of third parties certainly cannot represent an absolute bar to the existence of an inherent power.

(6) The interests of justice

When all is said and done, the court is faced with a civil dispute that must be resolved. In cases where a power exists, it has long been emphasised that the establishment of the truth is both a goal in itself and a process that serves the interests of justice. As noted above, where a court makes findings of fact based upon witness and documentary testimony, there is always the possibility of error. Evidence will be incomplete because (by definition in a case of the present kind) people will have died and memories may have faded. When dealing with matters as important as parentage, the need to reach the right conclusion is obvious. The prospect of a court trying to ascertain the truth to the best of its ability when the truth is in effect there for the asking is a troubling one. Account must also be taken of the needless waste of resources that would accompany a trial involving narrative evidence.

(7) The range of circumstances

The existence of a power cannot depend upon the circumstances of the particular case. What is relevant is the range of cases that might arise. It is possible to envisage opportunistic and unmeritorious applications, but there might equally be applications, perhaps concerning young children, where the need to know the truth about parentage is compelling. The answer cannot be that the court can consider an application in the second case but not in the first: jurisdiction cannot depend on merits.

Reflecting the complexity of the legal and ethical issues, the above features pull in a number of different directions. If the only considerations related to the interests of the deceased and the public interest, the arguments against the existence of an inherent power would surely prevail. However, the interests of the living and the interests of justice must also be brought into consideration.
Taking all these matters into account, my conclusion is that the High Court does possess an inherent jurisdiction that it can properly deploy to direct scientific testing to provide evidence of parentage in circumstances falling outside the scope of the FLRA. If the court was unable to obtain evidence of this kind, severe and avoidable injustice might result. Awareness of the implications of ordering testing without consent and of the wider public interest does not lead to the conclusion that the jurisdiction does not exist, but rather to the realisation that it should be exercised sparingly in cases where the absence of a remedy would lead to injustice.

This is not a surprising conclusion. Magical Sparkle Power continues to be most efficacious in evey case. The remedy for all ills.

Having established that the Court COULD use Magical Sparkle Power to compel a DNA test from a deceased person’s tissue samples, given for another reason, the Court then had to decide whether they SHOULD in this case. (This of course raises the issue as to whether someone who is terminally ill should make legal arrangements for the destruction of any tissue samples on death, or whether that should be part of a formal consent procedure when the samples are taken, but that’s a bit beyond our scope)

F THIRD ISSUE: SHOULD TESTING BE DIRECTED IN THIS CASE?

The following factors are relied upon in support of testing:

(1) Mr Spencer’s natural desire/right to know his parentage.

(2) Combined with this, the value that knowledge of paternity will have in clarifying his medical status and the need (or not) for intrusive investigations.

(3) The interests of justice and the need for the best available evidence: cf Re H and A.

In response, it is said on behalf of Mrs Anderson that:

(1) An order for testing would be an unjustified interference with her own Art. 8 rights by compounding a distressing situation and creating a risk that a genetic relationship would be identified between herself and a person who has caused her stress and anxiety.

(2) Human DNA is intensely personal and very strong justification is therefore required if it is to be used for any purpose without that person’s consent. The sample was provided by Mr Anderson for his own benefit during the course of medical treatment. He was entitled to a high expectation of confidentiality.

(3) Testing could not have taken place in Mr Anderson’s lifetime without his consent. This statutory bar has been given greater weight than any other rights, including those of a supposed child. Mr Anderson’s option to consent or withhold consent during his lifetime (and to explain his decision) was circumvented by Mr Spencer’s choice not to raise the issue until after his death. It would be unjust if his extensive delay allowed Mr Spencer to achieve testing without consent.

(4) To allow testing in this case would be against the public interest by undermining patient confidence in the confidentiality of providing samples for medical treatment.

(5) Mr Spencer’s delay deprived Mr Anderson of the opportunity to make decisions about his private life and his property.

(6) Mr Spencer’s interest weighs less heavily in the balance than that of Mr Anderson, Mrs Anderson and the public interest because:

(i) His lack of interest in testing until after Mr Anderson’s death shows that he had no interest in testing for paternity in order to satisfy himself of that relationship for its own sake. The court is not obliged to take positive steps to uphold his rights in these circumstances.

(ii) If the request is now motivated by inheritance reasons, his delay denied the deceased the opportunity to manage his estate in the light of relevant knowledge.

(iii) If the request is now motivated by medical reasons, on Mr Spencer’s own case, a test would merely serve to confirm what he already believes to be the case; if no testing is carried out he will continue to benefit from low-risk screening which will reduce his chance of cancer.

(7) Making no order for testing in this case would not exclude the possibility of an order for testing of a DNA sample being made on different facts, for example, where national security or the life of a child was at stake.

Weighing these matters up with appropriate caution, and seeking to strike a fair balance between the competing private and public interests, I have reached the conclusion that scientific testing should take place to seek to establish the paternity of Mr Spencer by using the stored DNA sample of the late Mr Anderson. These are my reasons:

(1) If the application for a declaration of parentage had appeared to be speculative or opportunistic, the request for scientific testing would probably not have succeeded. However, the overall evidence here raises the real possibility that Mr Anderson was Mr Spencer’s father, he having undeniably been in a relationship with Mr Spencer’s mother at the time of conception.

(2) It is common ground between the parties that there is a significant medical issue that turns on the possibility of a biological relationship between Mr Anderson and Mr Spencer. It is of course possible for Mr Spencer to be tested periodically by colonoscopy, but that is only a partial solution because he is surely entitled to know the reason why he should undergo those procedures, or to be relieved of the need to do so. As recently as February 2015, Mrs Anderson regarded it as “essential” that Mr Spencer’s paternity should be established. It does not now lie easily in her mouth to say the opposite.

(3) Although it is possible that the late Mr Anderson (like the alleged father in Jaggi) might have refused to consent to testing during his lifetime, there is no particular reason to regard that as likely. Whether or not he would have welcomed the possibility that he was a father, it may not do justice to his memory to assume that he would have withheld his support from a young man who might have inherited a serious medical condition from him.

(4) The information, in the form of the DNA sample, is readily available and does not require physically intrusive investigations. In particular, it does not require exhumation, as to which particular considerations would undoubtedly arise.

(5) There is no objection on behalf of the hospital, which might be seen as being a nominal representative of the public interest in this case.

(6) The interests of third parties, and in particular those of Mrs Anderson to the extent that they may be engaged, are, with all respect, of lesser significance. There is no indication of any real risk of harm and the establishment of the truth carries greater weight than the question of whether it is palatable.

I accordingly find that Mr Spencer’s interest in knowing his biological parentage, the questions raised by the medical history, and the marked advantages of scientific testing as a means of resolving both issues, collectively carry more weight in the particular circumstances of this case than the counter-indicators to testing that undoubtedly exist. It is in the interests of justice that testing should take place, and it is a proper exercise of the court’s inherent jurisdiction to secure this outcome.
For completeness I would add that, had testing not been directed, the court would have heard the evidence in the normal way. Statutory inferences could not be drawn in a case where the statute did not apply, but this would not have prevented the court from drawing whatever inferences seemed proper from the evidence before it.
I pay tribute to the considerable help that I have received from counsel and invite them to submit a draft order that reflects this decision and replicates so far as possible the protections that would accompany a direction for testing under the FLRA.

Magical Sparkle Power, eh. Amazing. For me, it’s a bit like Superman. If you’re writing a Superman comic or film, you know the powers that Superman has been given. It’s a broad spectrum – he has super strength, he has flight, he has X-ray vision, he has heat rays, he has extraordinary speed. That’s a lot to work with, it should cover most of what you need in any given scenario. If you start adding to that with the power to kiss people and make them forget things, to peel his logo off his chest and throw it as a super weapon, to fly so fast round the earth backwards that he can turn back time, then you’re CHEATING. Superman does have super powers, yes, but he has particular and specified superpowers. He can’t just suddenly produce claws out of his fists because Krypton, or have control over metal because “Superman”. So “Magical Sparkle Power” is my little way of reminding myself and others that there are consequences to using the inherent jurisdiction to do wholly new and imaginative things that aren’t written down anywhere, because every time you do, it is stepping stone that others will stand on to go a little bit further. Some of these stepping stones are now just floating in thin air.

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Posted in case law, inherent jurisdiction and tagged 2016 EWCA 851 Fam, dna paternity test, DNA test of a dead man, dna testing, inherent jurisdiction, magical sparkle power, mr justice peter jackson, restrictions on inherent jurisdiction, spencer v anderson 2016. Bookmark the permalink.

Preacher and Cyanide

Posted on April 15, 2016 by suesspiciousminds

This was a Court of Appeal decision about whether a parent can be prevented from giving their children names of their choosing. In this case, the mother had chosen the names “Preacher” and “Cyanide” for her newborn twins.

Could she be prevented from officially registering these names?

Unlike France, where Registrars themselves have a right of veto, British Registrars can raise eyebrows and gently persuade, but they have no power to prevent a parent giving a name that they consider unsuitable.

Do the Courts have power to stop a parent doing so? Does a Local Authority?

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2016/374.html

The Court of Appeal ruled that the answer was yes, but that the correct route to follow was more complex than one might first think.

The issue to be determined is whether there is power in this jurisdiction to prevent a parent with parental responsibility from registering a child with the forename of his or her choice. If the answer to that question is ‘Yes’, the second question (and one which rather unexpectedly requires a detailed consideration of somewhat labyrinthine technicalities) is by what procedural route the court should exercise that power.
For reasons set out below I am entirely satisfied that the court has such a power. I am equally satisfied that it is a power which should be used only in the most extreme cases and only with the sanction of a High Court Judge.

Re C (Children) 2016

There were going to be care proceedings in any event, due to the mother’s background of mental health difficulties, and the Local Authority in this case applied to the Court under the Inherent Jurisdiction. The Judge at first instance said that they were wrong to do this, and ruled that if they had Interim Care Orders (which they did), then naming a child was a function of parental responsibility, and the LA could overrule this, using the powers in section 33 of the Children Act 1989.

The parent’s protection about the LA using this power of veto would be to make an application under the Human Rights Act that the power had been used disproportionately.

The Court of Appeal took the view that whilst this was technically correct, that blocking the parents choice of name was such an unusual and important decision that it was best for the matter to come before a Court, and thus that inherent jurisdiction actually was the right step.

In my judgment:
1. i) the choosing of a name (forename and surname) for a child by a parent with parental responsibility and

ii) thereafter the act of complying with the duty of the mother and the father to give to the registrar ” information of the particulars required to be registered concerning the birth, and in the presence of the registrar to sign the register” (section 2(1) BDRA 1953)

are each acts of parental responsibility.

The route chosen in the present case by the judge – section 33(3)CA 1989 supported by an injunction under section 37 SCA 1981 – is superficially attractive, the more so, if Baker J is right, that the mother has a safety net in that she may apply for an injunction under section 8 HRA 1998 where : (i) the proposed course of action by a local authority falls foul of section 33(4) CA 1989, in failing to promote the welfare of the child in question and (ii) where it can be shown to be a unjustifiable interference with the family’s Article 8 rights.

In my judgment, notwithstanding the possible availability of such ‘tit for tat’ injunctions, the use by a local authority of section 33 CA 1989 in relation to the registration or change of a child’s forename has at least two significant problems:

i) if the judge is right and the inherent jurisdiction has no role in a case such as this because section 33 CA 1989 provides the complete answer, then, unless a local authority needs to apply for an injunction under section 37 SCA 1981, this comprehensive invasion of the mother’s Article 8 rights will require no prior sanction from the court.

ii) The matter came before the court only because an application was made under section 100 CA 1989 and not by way of an application under section 33 CA 1989. Section 33 CA 1989 provides for an application for leave to be made to the court with regards to the changing of a child’s surname. There is no similar provision in relation to a forename. There is therefore no procedural route within section 33(3) CA 1989 (or by way of a general “catch all” within the Act) whereby a local authority can bring before the court that exceptional case where the court’s guidance is needed as to the use by a local authority of its powers under section 33(3)(b)(i), in respect of the decision itself (as opposed to seeking the protection of the local authority’s powers by way of injunction).

In my judgment notwithstanding that a local authority may have the statutory power under section 33(3)(b) CA 1989 to prevent the mother from calling the twins “Preacher” and “Cyanide”, the seriousness of the interference with the Article 8 rights of the mother consequent upon the local authority exercising that power, demands that the course of action it proposes be brought before and approved by the court.

(Whilst the provisions of s33(7) prevent the LA changing a child’s surname without permission of the Court, there is no such ban on forename)

It does seem that it must be right for such a serious step to be aired before a Court and debated properly, rather than a Local Authority using their powers under an ICO under s33 to change the name without the opportunity for the Court to properly consider it, and a parent trying to fix it after the event.

Inherent jurisdiction of course requires that the provisions of section 100 apply (that the desired outcome cannot be achieved by any other statutory order, and that significant harm will arise if inherent jurisdiction is not used)

I am satisfied that the result which the local authority wish to achieve cannot be achieved either:

i) through the making of an order to which section 100(5) CA 1989 applies in the absence of a provision (or requirement) in section 33 CA 1989 for the local authority to make an application in relation to the giving or changing of a forename of a child or

ii) by way of a prohibited steps order or a specific issue order.

That leaves the question of “whether there is reasonable cause to believe that if the court’s inherent jurisdiction is not exercised with respect to the child he is likely to suffer significant harm”?

The judge reached the conclusion that section 100(4)(b) CA 1989 was not satisfied; in his judgment, the giving to the babies of the names contemplated by the mother did not give the court “reasonable cause to believe that if the court’s inherent jurisdiction is not exercised” they would suffer significant harm. Further, the judge appeared to be of the view that a single issue relating to the naming of a child, is not, without more, capable of satisfying the section 31 CA 1989 threshold criteria. With respect I disagree; in my judgment, although it will only rarely be the case, the giving of a particular name to a child can give a court reasonable cause to believe that, absent its intervention, the child in question is likely to suffer significant emotional harm. In my judgment this is one such case and there is every reason to believe that if the court’s inherent jurisdiction is not invoked in order to prevent the girl child from being named ‘”Cyanide”, she is likely to suffer significant harm.

In my judgment, the local authority took the correct procedural route when they made an application under section 100 CA 1989 seeking ” the intervention of the High Court in order to exercise its powers pursuant to section 100 Children Act (CA) 1989 and/or its Inherent Jurisdiction” (sic).

The significant harm issue is obviously tricky. The Court were satisfied here that the choice of the name “Cyanide” was such that would cause the child significant harm.

Let’s look at the mother’s reasoning

“6. I confirm that I believe it is my right to name the children the names that I have chosen as their mother and I believe it is my human right to exercise my right to choose their names and register my children’s names without the interference of the local authority.

7. I confirm that I have chosen Preacher for my boy child as it is a strong spiritual name. It is a name that suggests proclamation and advocacy and being able to communicate with a wide community.

8. I also consider that Preacher is a rather cool name which will stand my son well for the future and I do not consider that it will impact on his development, emotionally, physically or mentally.

9. I confirm that I have chosen the name Cyanide as I believe that it is a lovely pretty name.

10. I further confirm that the name is linked with flowers and plants, that elderberry, hydrangea, cherry laurel and roses all have compounds of Cyanide found in the leaves and the fruits.

11. I believe that Cyanide will be a strong name that will stand my daughter well for the future and that I believe that it is a poison that has been used since the ancient Egyptians and it is derived from the Greek meaning dark blue.

12. I also consider that Cyanide was responsible for killing Hitler and Goebbels and I consider that this was a good thing and therefore Cyanide can be considered as a positive name, reflecting positive action that destroyed very bad people in the war.

13. I do not accept that it will have an adverse impact on my daughter during her formative years or later in her life.”

The Court of Appeal said this about names generally

What is in a name?

One of the first questions asked by friends and relatives following the birth of a child is ‘what is the baby’s name?’ It may be thought that any individual who has had the happy experience of debating with his or her partner possible forenames for their unborn child would be astonished at the proposition that the choice of the name of their child could be regarded as other than their right as the child’s parents, and their first act of parental responsibility. The name given to a child ordinarily evolves over the months of the pregnancy through a bundle of cultural, familial and taste influences. The forename finally chosen forms a critical part of his or her evolving identity. The sharing of a forename with a parent or grandparent or bearing a forename which readily identifies a child as belonging to his or her particular religious or cultural background, can be a source of great pride to a child and give him or her an important sense of ‘belonging’ which will be invaluable throughout his or her life.
If a baby cannot be brought up by his or her parents, often the forename given to him or her by their mother is the only lasting gift they have from her. It may be the first, and only, act of parental responsibility by his or her mother. It is likely, therefore, to be of infinite value to that child as part of his or her identity. That remains the case, even if the name used in his or her new family and thereafter throughout their lives, is different from that given to him or her by their birth mother.
The naming of a child is not however merely a right or privilege, but also a responsibility; people, and particularly children, are capable of great unkindness and often are not accepting of the unusual or bizarre. It does not need expert evidence or academic research to appreciate that a name which attracts ridicule, teasing, bullying or embarrassment will have a deleterious effect on a child’s self-esteem and self-confidence with potentially long term consequences for him or her. The burden of such a name can also cause that child to feel considerable resentment towards the parent who inflicted it upon him or her.
The judge recognised both the importance of a forename, and the fact that, ordinarily a choice of name for a child, even one which many would regard as outlandish, would not provide a reason for the interference by the state in private family life. The judge said:
1. “A name is a direct link with the parent who chose the name……A name is also a badge of association, sometimes reflecting cultural identity, nationality, tribal heritage or religion. Above all a name is a gift a parent gives to a child, reflective of personal wishes and traditionally unconstrained in its choosing by legal restriction.

Notwithstanding the above it is not unknown to those working in the Family Court to encounter children whose parents have chosen to give them forenames which can most kindly be described as unusual, idiosyncratic or even eccentric bordering on the bizarre and more accurately be regarded as an act of parental selfishness or thoughtlessness and wholly lacking in consideration of the impact upon the child.

The choice of such names may well be reflective of a general failure to adopt a child centred approach to their responsibilities in meeting the child’s welfare but in my experience that choice of name has never been in of itself a reason for the involvement of the state in private family life.”

The judge went on to consider how taste and perception can change and that a name which “is considered by a child to be an embarrassment at one age on account of it being different or unusual may well, as they get older and begin to assert their individuality, become a badge of pride for those very same reasons.”
The judge correctly identified the important issue in the context of the care proceedings before him as being “the extent to which the local authority can or should exercise its shared responsibility in order to determine the name that a child in their care should be given…”.

In relation to the possibility of names being given which could be harmful, and “Cyanide” particularly :-

Discussion

I have reached the conclusion that there is a small category of cases where, notwithstanding the local authority’s powers under section 33(3)(b) CA 1989, the consequences of the exercise of a particular act of parental responsibility are so profound and have such an impact on either the child his or herself, and/or the Article 8 rights of those other parties who share parental responsibility with a local authority, that the matter must come before the court for its consideration and determination.
It follows that I am also satisfied that there may be rare cases, where a local authority believes that the forename chosen by a parent, and by which he or she intends to register a child, goes beyond the unusual, bizarre, extreme or plain foolish, and instead gives the local authority reasonable cause to believe that by calling him or her that name he or she is likely to be caused significant harm. In those highly unusual circumstances, the proper route by which the local authority seek to ensure that the course it proposes is necessary and in the child’s interests is (as was held by Butler-Sloss LJ in Re D, L, and LA supra) by putting the matter before the High Court by way of an application to invoke its inherent jurisdiction.
Cyanide
The judge at first instance found that, even allowing for changes in taste or “developing individual perception”, the name “Cyanide” was not “obviously indicative of a parent who is acting so as to contribute or otherwise secure the welfare of her children” and made the order sought preventing the mother from calling her Cyanide or registering her birth in that name. As already recorded, the judge reached that decision notwithstanding that he had held that the issue of the naming of the children was not, in itself, capable of satisfying a court that the child in question was likely to suffer significant harm.
As set out at paragraph 103 above, I disagree with the judge’s conclusion as to availability of the court’s inherent jurisdiction, although not with the ultimate decision he made. For myself, I cannot (at present) envisage any circumstances in which an order preventing a parent from giving its child the forename of its choice could, or should, be made absent the court being satisfied that failure to intervene is likely to cause the child in question significant harm.
In my judgment, giving this child the name “Cyanide” as her forename is capable, without more, of giving the court reasonable cause to believe that she would be likely to suffer significant emotional harm:
1. i) in relation to her sense of identity and self-worth, particularly here as a child who cannot be brought up by either of her own parents. It is hard to see how (regardless of what justification may be given to her by loving carers) the girl twin could regard being named after this deadly poison as other than a complete rejection of her by her birth mother; a rejection not replicated, in her eyes, in respect of her twin brother.

ii) to her in her day to day life as a child. Whilst teasing and ridicule are a natural part of childhood and, in moderation, help to develop resilience, such a name potentially exposes the girl twin to treatment which goes far beyond acceptable teasing. Further it would be wilful of the court to fail to factor into its consideration the power of social media and the very real danger that a child called “Cyanide” would soon be a victim of “cyber bullying”

In my judgment this is one of those rare cases where the court, in the exercise of its inherent jurisdiction, should intervene to protect the girl twin from the emotional harm that I am satisfied she would suffer if called “Cyanide”.

That left “Preacher” – it would seem to me that if there had only been one child that “Preacher” comes under the category of unusual or idiosyncratic names, but could not be said to actually be capable of causing the child harm. The children’s Guardian in this case urged the Court to prohibit “Cyanide” but allow “Preacher” (and I have to say that I tend to agree)

However, the Court of Appeal did not think that the Judge had been wrong to prohibit both names. In essence, they say that the female child, whatever she would be named, might later learn that her name was not given to her by her mother whilst her twin brother had got the name his mother had given him. As a result, she might find out (probably by googling “Boy named Preacher”) that her mother had wanted to call her Cyanide. The Court of Appeal felt that it would be better for both children to have names chosen by others, rather than one by their mother and one by the Local Authority

Preacher

In her written submissions, the Guardian submitted that the interference in the mother’s right to name her child was only necessary and proportionate in respect of calling the female baby “Cyanide”. Her argument was that the two names fell on either side of the ‘significant harm’ threshold – “Cyanide” on one side of the threshold – that of being harmful, and “Preacher” on the other – unusual, but not harmful.
The local authority’s application under section 100 CA 1989 was made in respect of both children. The Guardian’s approach whilst understandable, arguably places the twins in conflict, with the boy child growing up with the name chosen by his birth mother whilst his twin does not.
In the case of Birmingham City Council v H (No 2) [1993] 1 FLR 883, Balcombe J described the balancing exercise to be carried out where a conflict arose between the separate interests and welfare of two children in one application in the following way:
1. “You start with an evenly balanced pair of scales. Of course, when you start to put into the scales the matters relevant to each child – and in particular those listed in s 1(3) – the result may come down in favour of the one rather than the other, but that is a balancing exercise which the court is well used to conducting in cases concerning children.”

At 899E – G, Evans LJ put the matter like this:

“But the welfare of the two individuals cannot both be ‘paramount’ in the ordinary and natural meaning of that word. If that is the requirement of s 1(1) in the circumstances, then the Act presents the court with an impossible task. For this reason, I agree with Balcombe LJ that the requirement must be regarded as qualified, in the cases where the welfare of more than one child is involved, by the need to have regard to potential detriment for one in the light of potential benefit for the other. Only in this way, as it seems to me, can the subsection be applied and the manifest objects of the Act achieved.”

In my judgment the potential benefit to the boy twin in having a forename chosen by his mother is more than outweighed by the potential detriment to the girl child of them having forenames names given to them from two different sources – namely their mother on the one hand and their half siblings on the other.
It is not unusual for a child, with even the most commonplace name, to ask how his or her name was chosen. This is made more likely in the case of an unusual name, such as “Preacher” and in circumstances where the children concerned are not living with their natural parents. The only possible response that his carers would be able to make in response to such a question, would be to tell the boy twin that it was the name that his birth mother had chosen for him. This would lead to the inevitable question from the girl twin as to whether her name had also been chosen for her by her mother and, if not why not? She would undoubtedly ask what name her mother had given to her and why it had been changed. The outcome of such a predictable conversation would be to expose the girl twin to a significant part of the very harm the court seeks to prevent; she would know not only that her mother had chosen to call her “Cyanide”, but also to have to come to terms with the fact that she was to have been named after a notorious poison, whilst her twin brother was to be given the name of a respected member of society, “Preacher”.
I accept the Guardian’s basic submission that the name “Preacher” in itself would probably not have led a court to conclude that he would be likely to suffer significant harm if that was the forename he was given. However, upon carrying out the BCC v H balancing exercise, and having put into the scales the matters relevant to each child, I have reached the conclusion that the girl twin’s welfare can only met by neither she nor her brother having the names chosen for them by their mother. I am reinforced in this view by the fact that, whilst “Preacher” in itself might not be an objectionable name, there is considerable benefit for the boy twin to be in the same position as his sister and for them each to grow up knowing that their half siblings, with whom they live, chose both of their names for them.
I would not therefore conclude that the judge had erred in deciding that it was not in the best interests of the boy twin to be called “Preacher” although for rather different reasons.

It would be a very exceptional case where this occurs – even more so if the choice of name was the ONLY matter which went to threshold. Such cases would have to go to the High Court for determination.

[I’m sure that all lawyers working in this field have a string of very unusual names that have been given to children within care proceedings. I’m fairly sure that by now, someone will have had a “Hashtag”. The test is much higher than just a whacky or idiosyncratic name, and into something which could be shown to be actually harmful ]

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Posted in case law, inherent jurisdiction and tagged 2016 EWCA Civ 374, blocking a parents choice of name, children's forenames, Court of Appeal, high court, inherent jurisdiction, parent's choice of name, re c children, section 33 (7) children act, section 33 Children Act. Bookmark the permalink.

Mistaken identity

Posted on February 23, 2016 by suesspiciousminds

Readers may recall the case of Riaz , where Keehan J used the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court to make injunctions against a number of men, banning them from contact with any child under 18 and allowing them to be ‘named and shamed’ as people who may have sexually exploited or groomed children. (They may also remember my doubts that the inherent jurisdiction, which is undoubtedly pretty elastic, stretched quite as far as Keehan J was deciding. “I’m like a rubber band, until you pull too hard”, as Sia sings)

We then had the Redbridge case, in which Hayden J said just that, that the inherent jurisdiction could properly be used to protect a named child from harm from named individuals, but not to protect ALL children against such men.

Both of these Judges are High Court Judges, so the conflict between Riaz and Redbridge will have to be decided by a more senior Court if at all.

Birmingham City Council vand SK 2016

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2016/310.html

In this case, however, Keehan J made a “Riaz” style injunction against a man, only to later have the Local Authority who asked for it to come back rather sheepishly to say that they had obtained such a serious injunction against the wrong man.

[Hopefully this time the “Riaz” injunction didn’t end up with the national or local press ‘outing’ this man as someone who exploits or grooms children. Am wondering what the remedy would be if so – you can’t sue for defamation for something that is said in Court so the LA telling the Judge that the man LG posed a sexual risk would be protected, a newspaper reporting the Court order would be protected. I guess it would have to be a claim for negligence?]

SK, from the age of 13, was absenting herself form the family home. It was discovered that she was keeping the company of much older men. She was beyond the control of her parents. Her case came to the attention of the local authority and of the police. Hence the care proceedings were issued and an application for an injunction was made against an individual, LG, who it was believed was sexually exploiting SK.
There was a meeting of MASE on 5 October 2014 when he was mentioned as a possible perpetrator of child sexual exploitation against SK.
The local authority thus made the application for a Birmingham City Council v Riaz and othrs [2014] EWHC 4247 (Fam) [2015] 2 FLR 763 (‘Riaz‘) style injunction against him. On the basis of the information then before me on 24 March, I granted the injunction as sought.
Within days of making that order, however, it became evident that there had been a serious lack of communication and/or a misunderstanding between the police and the legal department of the local authority. It also became clear that LG had quite wrongly been identified as a possible perpetrator of a child sexual exploitation of SK at the multi agency meeting held on 20 January 2015.
Quite properly the local authority immediately applied to me to discharge the injunction against LG. I granted the same but required a detailed explanation from the local authority and from the police as to how such a serious mistake had been made. I was promptly provided with an explanation which I accept. I do not propose to lengthen this judgment by reciting the same save that I accept it was a genuine and unintended error borne of lax and less than rigorous procedures.
The local authority and the police, with the court’s approval, wrote an entirely suitable and regretful letter of apology to LG. The material passages of that letter are:

“… The order had been granted by the High Court on the basis of evidence and information gathered by the local authority in the exercise of its safeguarding duties. The information that indicated that you might have involvement with the individual named in the order was provided to the local authority by West Midlands Police at a meeting on 23^rd September 2014, again as part of safeguarding procedures….

….On the 27^th March 2015 information was received by the local authority legal department from West Midlands Police. That information made clear that it was not thought that you were in fact involved with the child in question….

….The reason that Birmingham City Council sought an order against you was that information was received from West Midlands Police (WMP) at a social services meeting in September 2014, that there was a log connecting you to a relevant address and potentially to the child in question.

However, a break down of safeguarding procedures within the local authority meant that this link with LG was considered to be accurate even after, at another safeguarding meeting on the 20^th January this year, West Midlands Police made it clear that LG was not thought to be involved with the child.

Prior to the hearing at court on the 24^th March 2015 the local authority sought to ensure that the information it relied upon remained accurate. However, the steps taken failed to highlight that you were not involved with the child…..”
The positive outcome of this most serious and unfortunate set of circumstances has been the creation of a Protocol devised by the local authority and the police. It is an extremely helpful document which is the result of many, many hours of discussion and debate between the various agencies engaged in the field of child sexual exploitation.

The misidentification of LG as a potential perpetrator of child sexual exploitation was, to put it mildly, extremely unfortunate. I am satisfied that the same resulted from a series of unintended errors and misunderstandings, of greater importance, however, for the conduct of future cases is the Protocol agreed between the local authority and the police. It provides a clear and detailed procedure for the steps to be taken in cases of actual or suspected child sexual exploitation. The protocol is the result of careful consideration over many months, by a number of agencies, with the benefit of counsels’ advice and drafting.

You can find the Protocol laid out in the judgment, if you are interested.

What is perturbing me, however, is how the Judge came to make the “Riaz” injunction without it coming to light that LG had been wrongly named as a sexual risk. That suggests strongly to me that LG was not present at the application – since if he was, surely he would have been saying that there had been a terrible mistake. So did Keehan J make such a serious order ex parte? (without LG being present to oppose it?)

We can’t be sure of that, since the judgment doesn’t explicitly say so, or set out what evidence was presented, but it is surely a lesson for the Courts as much as the LA? In all other applications, there is clear guidance and case law as to the risks of a hearing taking place with only one side present and the very limited circumstances in which that can occur, the caution that the Court needs to take and often the very high evidential bar that the applicant needs to surmount before an order can be made.

Given the huge implications of a “Riaz” style injunction (let’s not forget that the subject would be barred from any contact with children, and might be placed in very awkward situations having to explain that they cannot visit family or friends who have children, let alone the publicity issue), surely the very high evidential bar that exists with say Emergency Protection Orders ought to be in place. Particularly given that there’s some doubt about the jurisdictional issue.

I could be wrong. Maybe LG WAS present at the injunction application and either didn’t say that this was mistaken identity or wasn’t believed.

On a broader issue, we do need the conflict between Riaz and Redbridge to be resolved. We all know that different Judges approach things in slightly different ways and as human beings bring their own experience to bear, but it cannot be right that a person like LG faced with an application of this kind would have some Judges who would absolutely not make the injunction and some who would, on exactly the same facts. That cannot be right or fair.

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Posted in case law and tagged 2016 EWHC 310, Birmingham City Council and SK 2016, hayden j, inherent jurisdiction, injunctions, keehan j, Redbridge, riaz. Bookmark the permalink.

suesspiciousminds

Tag Archives: inherent jurisdiction

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