29.37BGhosh v General Medical Council [2001] UKPC 29, [2001] 1 WLR 1915
The jurisdiction of the Privy Council to hear the appeal of a registered medical practitioner against a decision of the professional conduct committee of the GMC was appellate rather than supervisory and the Privy Council would accord an appropriate degree of respect to the judgment of the Professional Conduct Committee (PCC) but will not defer to it more than is warranted by the circumstances
Facts: Dr Ghosh appealed against the decision of the PCC of the GMC to erase her name from the medical register due to her failure to comply with conditions imposed on her continued practice as a GP after she was found guilty of serious professional misconduct.
Judgment: the Privy Council (Lords Bingham, Cooke and Millett) dismissed the appeal and held that:
34. It is true that the Board’s powers of intervention may be circumscribed by the circumstances in which they are invoked, particularly in the case of appeals against sentence. But their Lordships wish to emphasise that their powers are not as limited as may be suggested by some of the observations which have been made in the past. In Evans v General Medical Council (unreported) 19 November 1984 the Board said:
‘The principles upon which this Board acts in reviewing sentences passed by the Professional Conduct Committee are well settled. It has been said time and again that a disciplinary committee are the best possible people for weighing the seriousness of professional misconduct, and that the Board will be very slow to interfere with the exercise of the discretion of such a committee… The committee are familiar with the whole gradation of seriousness of the cases of various types which come before them, and are peculiarly well qualified to say at what point on that gradation erasure becomes the appropriate sentence. This Board does not have that advantage nor can it have the same capacity for judging what measures are from time to time required for the purpose of maintaining professional standards.’
For these reasons the Board will accord an appropriate measure of respect to the judgment of the committee whether the practitioner’s failings amount to serious professional misconduct and on the measures necessary to maintain professional standards and provide adequate protection to the public. But the Board will not defer to the committee’s judgment more than is warranted by the circumstances. The council conceded, and their Lordships accept, that it is open to them to consider all the matters raised by Dr Ghosh in her appeal; to decide whether the sanction of erasure was appropriate and necessary in the public interest or was excessive and disproportionate; and in the latter event either to substitute some other penalty or to remit the case to the committee for reconsideration.