Laurie v MHTS [2007] ScotSC 44

An application was made for revocation/variation of a Compulsory Treatment Order by the patient's Named Person. Two competing arguments were before the Mental Health Tribunal - one regarding a community option, the other a move to a specialist unit. A report prepared on behalf of the specialist unit was before the Tribunal. The Sheriff concluded that there will be many cases where proceeding on the basis of a report, without requiring the author to speak to it, was entirely proper and satisfactory but that it was not adequate in the circumstances of this case given the importance attached to that report. Whilst no party had requested an opportunity to cross-examine the author of the report, the Sheriff held that the Tribunal is not purely adversarial but there is an inquisitorial element in the approach required to be adopted by the Tribunal in its reaching decisions. The failure to consider whether to require the author to give evidence and the failure to consider the weight of the untested content of that report, relative to the evidence from the witnesses, resulted in a finding of the Tribunal acting unreasonably in the exercise of its discretion.

Thanks

Thanks to DS (User:Ds) for writing the case summary.

Citation

Before the NCN was known, this page used: (2007) GWD 32-555

Case B291/07

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