The High Court has refused a doctor’s appeal against the Medical Council of Ireland’s decision not to register him, finding that the procedures used to assess his fitness to practise were fair in the circumstances.
In a judgment delivered on 31 October 2024, Mr Justice Micheál P. O’Higgins said the Council was entitled to consider the findings that led to the doctor’s erasure from the UK medical register. The court was not deciding disciplinary charges or imposing a sanction. It considered the appeal under section 54 of the Medical Practitioners Act 2007, which allowed it to confirm the Council’s decision or cancel and replace it.
The doctor applied for Irish registration in July 2017. The Council’s Registration and Continuing Practice Committee recommended refusal, and a Review Panel later recommended that he was unfit to practise. On 19 April 2023, the Council adopted that recommendation and refused registration. It said he lacked insight into the circumstances of his erasure by the UK General Medical Council and was not amenable to regulation.
The UK regulator had erased him in 2007 after finding misconduct across 43 allegations. The English High Court later overturned two dishonesty findings but upheld the erasure decision. The Irish High Court said the Council could take account of those findings, but was not bound by them. It also considered the Council’s assessment of other material, including the doctor’s submissions and the Review Panel’s concerns about his insight.
The doctor argued, among other points, that the process should have been public and that he should have been able to cross-examine patients who had complained in the UK proceedings. The judge was not persuaded that Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights required a public hearing at the Council stage. He said any procedural shortcoming, if one existed, was addressed by the doctor’s public appeal to the High Court.
On cross-examination, the judge distinguished this registration application from a disciplinary inquiry. The Council was considering whether the applicant was fit to enter the register, not rehearing the earlier complaints as allegations to be proved. The judge held that, on the specific facts, the absence of oral evidence and the complainants’ absence did not invalidate the process. He did not set a general rule for when evidence or cross-examination may be required; he said each case must be assessed individually.
The judgment also said the doctor had been given opportunities to make submissions, provide material and call evidence, and that the Council gave detailed reasons. The judge rejected the appeal and found no basis to interfere with the Council’s decision. The judgment does not register the doctor or alter the Council’s refusal.