The Supreme Court has quashed a direction requiring retired microbiology professor Patrick Meenan to testify before the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse about a 1960/1961 vaccine trial. It also dismissed the Commission’s application to compel his attendance.
The judgment, delivered by Chief Justice Keane on 31 July 2003, concerned two appeals from a High Court ruling. That court had dismissed Meenan’s judicial review challenge and ordered him to comply with the Commission’s direction under section 14(3) of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse Act 2000.
The direction required Meenan to attend a public hearing and be examined on oath about his involvement in a trial of the combined vaccine Quadravax. The inquiry arose under an order assigning the Commission additional functions to examine vaccine trials. The Supreme Court noted that the validity of that order was not challenged in the proceedings, and did not decide that issue.
Meenan’s lawyers had provided a statement about his involvement and said his age and health limited his ability to take part. In April 2003, they sent the Commission medical reports from four doctors, asking that the reports remain confidential except for possible review by an independent doctor. The Commission returned them, saying it could not accept them on those terms. It had not indicated that it considered their contents.
The court held that the Commission was not generally required to hear from every potential witness before issuing an attendance direction. But in this case, the inquiry concerned medical procedures used more than 40 years earlier, and the available evidence appeared to show they followed standards at the time. The court described their connection to the Commission’s child-abuse remit as tenuous. It also considered Meenan’s age and reported health, and his lawyers’ position that he did not have a central role in the matters under inquiry.
Chief Justice Keane concluded that fair procedures required the Commission to consider the medical reports privately before deciding whether public examination and cross-examination were necessary, and to consider an independent medical examination if needed. The Commission had not satisfactorily explained why it could not do so. The judgment allowed both appeals, quashed the direction to attend the hearing scheduled for 17 June 2003, and dismissed the Commission’s section 14(3) application. It did not determine the underlying questions about the trial or its ethical propriety.