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On appeal from [2014] CSIH 61

 

This appeal considered whether there is an intermediate sanction open to the GPC Fitness to Practise Committee which allows it to indicate that a period of suspension should exceed 12 months, and whether the original sanction of removal from the Register of Pharmacists was wrong in principle, clearly inappropriate or plainly disproportionate. The Supreme Court unanimously allowed both the appeal and cross-appeal. The Court found that it was wrong to have referred the case to the Extra Division of the Court of Session, and this Extra Division was wrong to have stated the original 12 month suspension of right to practice could subsequently be extended. As a review committee it could not impose a further suspension to reflect the original committee’s conclusion that the gravity of the registrant’s misconduct demanded a longer period of suspension (indeed, removal altogether) than the 12 months it was permitted to imposed.
However, the original committee itself acknowledged that its direction for removal might appear harsh, and the Supreme Court, allowing the respondent’s cross-appeal, held that a direction for suspension should be substituted in place of the original committee’s direction for removal from the register.

For judgment, please download: [2016] UKSC 64
For Court’s press summary, please download: Court’s Press Summary 
For a non-PDF version of the judgment, please visit: BAILII

To watch the hearing, please visit: Supreme Court Website