AC-2024-MAN-000469 - [2025] EWHC 2049 (Admin)

Fecha: 31-Jul-2025

The legal framework

The legal framework

General principles relevant to statutory appeals of this kind

48.

Section 40 of the Medical Act 1983 provides a right of appeal to the High Court against determinations on the facts, impairment and/or sanction reached by a Tribunal.

49.

Under CPR 52.21(1) every appeal will be limited to a review of the decision of the lower court unless a practice direction makes a different provision for a particular category of appeal; or the court considers that in the circumstances of an individual appeal it would be in the interests of justice to hold a re-hearing.

50.

Under CPR 52.21(3), the appeal court will allow an appeal where the decision of the lower court was “wrong; or unjust because of a serious procedural or other irregularity in the proceedings in the lower court.”

51.

The approach to be taken by the court in a section 40 appeal was set out by the Court of Appeal in Sastry v General Medical [2021] EWCA Civ 623. Nicola Davies LJ, giving the judgment of the court, identified the following points as to the nature and extent of the section 40 appeal and the approach of the appellate court at [102]:

There is an unqualified statutory right of appeal by medical practitioners pursuant to section 40 of the 1983 Act;

ii)

The jurisdiction of the court is appellate, not supervisory;

iii)

The appeal is by way of a rehearing in which the court is fully entitled to substitute its own decision for that of the Tribunal;

iv)

The appellate court will not defer to the judgment of the Tribunal more than is warranted by the circumstances;

The appellate court must decide whether the sanction imposed was appropriate and necessary in the public interest or was excessive and disproportionate; and

vi)

In the latter event, the appellate court should substitute some other penalty or remit the case to the Tribunal for reconsideration.