Facts: after having suffered a stroke, but before going into residential care, Mr Beeson transferred his home to his son, by deed of gift. Dorset concluded that Mr Beeson had deprived himself of capital for the purpose of decreasing the amount that he might become liable to pay for residential accommodation and treated the value of the home as notional capital.

Judgment: the Court of Appeal (The President, Waller and Laws LJJ) held that the decision-making process involved a determination of Mr Beeson’s civil rights and obligations, for the purposes of Article 6 ECHR because the question of what accommodation Mr Beeson would occupy, and on what terms, affected his rights in private law. However, Mr Beeson had had ‘a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law’, in that he had utilised Dorset’s complaints procedure (culminating in a hearing before a panel comprising two councillors and an independent chair) and then judicial review. Although the issues were fact-laden and turned on credibility, the context was a statutory scheme instituted by Parliament for the allocation of public resources by a local authority and in that context the availability of judicial review as an ultimate recourse, notwithstanding its restricted ambit, satisfied the requirements of Article 6 ECHR.