Craig Barlow & Aidan Briggs consider Bonhoeffer & hearsay evidence in disciplinary proceedings
Whichever professional reads this article, either they or their clients’ activities are policed by a disciplinary body and its procedural rules—be they statutory, contractual or otherwise. Somewhere in the depths of most of those rules lurks a procedural mechanism that prima facie authorises the admission of “hearsay” evidence.
In R (Bonhoeffer) v The General Medical Council [2011] EWHC 1585 (Admin), [2011] All ER (D) 141 (Jun), the General Medical Council’s (GMC) fitness to practice panel (FTPP) decided after much argument to admit crucial and controversial “hearsay” evidence against the defendant. The court quashed that decision, relying upon common law “fairness” and Art 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998. The implications of the Bonhoeffer decision for the interpretation, application and use of such hearsay rules or provisions before disciplinary bodies are profound and reach far beyond the GMC.
Bonhoeffer
Bonhoeffer was a long standing and eminent consultant paediatric cardiologist of repute. He stood accused of eight allegations of professional misconduct, the substance of these being that he
