The Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal by a registered nurse and midwife who argued that the chairperson of a professional fitness inquiry could not be seen as impartial because she and the Board’s expert witness worked at the Rotunda Hospital.
The appeal concerned a Fitness to Practise Committee inquiry into the nurse’s management of a labour during a home birth between 18 and 20 April 2007. The infant later died after the mother was transferred to the Coombe Hospital. The Board made clear that it did not allege the nurse was responsible for the infant’s death.
The inquiry followed concerns raised by the Coombe Hospital. The Board’s application to the Committee passed the initial threshold for an inquiry, and notice was issued in September 2008. The hearing began in May 2009 after two adjournments requested by the nurse because of changes in legal representation.
During the expert witness’s evidence, the nurse’s legal team learned that the Committee chairperson, Pauline Treanor, was General Manager of the Rotunda, where expert witness Fiona Hanrahan worked. The nurse’s counsel asked the Committee to discharge itself, alleging objective bias but not actual bias. The Committee, with Treanor excluded from its deliberations, ruled that her participation did not create objective bias.
The High Court dismissed the nurse’s judicial review application in October 2009. The Supreme Court considered whether the shared workplace and professional connection gave rise to a reasonable apprehension that Treanor would not assess the evidence impartially. It reiterated that an association must have a cogent and rational link to a feared departure from impartial decision-making; the association alone is not enough.
The Court said there was no evidence that either woman had an interest in the inquiry’s outcome beyond upholding professional standards, or that the Rotunda was hostile to home births. It noted that Hanrahan was selected for her experience with home births and that the hospital had no involvement in the particular case. The Court also rejected the argument that Treanor’s failure to state her workplace at the hearing’s outset established bias: the connection was acknowledged and examined once raised, and nondisclosure was not a ground on which leave for judicial review had been granted.
The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal. The judgment addressed the bias challenge and the Committee’s ruling; it did not determine the underlying professional misconduct allegation.