The High Court has refused Peter and Linda McEvoy leave to bring judicial review proceedings challenging the Medical Council’s decision to take no further action on their complaint about the treatment of Eileen McEvoy.
In a judgment delivered on 29 July 2019, Ms Justice O’Regan concluded that the applicants had not shown an arguable case for the reliefs they sought. The ruling was made at the leave stage; the court did not determine the underlying complaint about the doctors’ care.
The McEvoys complained to the Medical Council in June 2017 that doctors identified in the judgment as A and B had engaged in professional misconduct or poor professional performance. Their complaint concerned treatment after Eileen McEvoy was admitted to hospital following a stroke in May 2012. The judgment says she had been in a comatosed and vegetative state since 10 May 2012.
The Preliminary Proceedings Committee (PPC) considered the complaint and, on 17 January 2019, formed the opinion that there was insufficient cause for further action. The Medical Council accepted that opinion at a meeting on 6 and 7 February and communicated a final decision that no further action would be taken.
The applicants sought to quash the Council’s decision and also sought an order requiring the PPC to reconsider their complaints. Justice O’Regan said a challenge to the PPC’s January opinion appeared to be out of time. The applicants had not applied for an extension, although the court noted differing High Court decisions on when the three-month time limit stops running. The judge said the applicants could potentially rely on those differing views to seek an extension if necessary, but concluded that the challenge to the PPC opinion was out of time without an explanation.
The applicants argued that the PPC had failed to consider their submissions and a medical report they held, and had acted irrationally by relying on an independent expert report that they disputed. The court found that the PPC’s letter said it had considered all material, and that the applicants had not provided their report despite being asked to send relevant documents. The judgment also records that the independent expert found no failings by the doctors and considered the outcome more likely than not to have followed from the natural course of the stroke.
The court rejected the bias and bad-faith grounds, accepting sworn evidence that individuals alleged to have been involved were not part of the relevant decision-making and that inaccurate website information resulted from an administrative error. It also found the applicants’ public-policy arguments did not establish a challenge to how the statutory complaint process had been conducted.
Justice O’Regan held that the applicants could not maintain an arguable case for the requested relief. Leave to seek judicial review was refused.