25.55R v North and East Devon Health Authority ex p Coughlan [2001] QB 213, (1999) 2 CCLR 285, CA
Removing a person from their home, unjustifiably breaching a promise they could stay there for life, was incompatible with Article 8 ECHR
Facts: Ms Coughlan was rendered very severely disabled by a road traffic accident. After a period of treatment at Newcourt Hospital, which the health authority then wished to close, she and seven other patients were moved to Mardon House hospital, with an assurance that it would be their ‘home for life’. However, the health authority then resolved to close Mardon House. In addition, it determined that Ms Coughlan no longer met the criteria for NHS continuing healthcare, so that she had to resort to local authority residential accommodation. Ms Coughlan submitted that it was beyond the powers of a local authority to provide her with the nursing care she needed and that it was unlawful for the health authority to resile from its ‘home for life’ promise; and a breach of Article 8 ECHR.
Judgment: the Court of Appeal (Lord Woolf MR, Mummery,Sedley LJJ) held, on the ECHR point:
93. The judge was entitled to treat this as a case where the Health Authority’s conduct was in breach of Article 8 and was not justified by the provisions of Article 8(2). Mardon House is, in the circumstances described, Miss Coughlan’s home. It has been that since 1993. It was promised to be just that for the rest of her life. It is not suggested that it is not her home or that she has a home elsewhere or that she has done anything to justify depriving her of her home at Mardon House. By closure of Mardon House the Health Authority will interfere with what will soon be her right to her home. For the reasons explained, the Health Authority would not be justified in law in doing so without providing accommodation which meets her needs.. As Sir Thomas Bingham MR said in R v Ministry of Defence ex p Smith [1996] QB 517 at 554E:
‘The more substantial the interference with human rights, the more the court will require by way of justification before it is satisfied that the decision is reasonable …’
or, we would add, in a case such as the present, fair.