England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION (ADMINISTRATIVE COURT)
(MR JUSTICE ELIAS)

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2A 2LL Friday 15 June 2001

1. LORD JUSTICE SEDLEY: This application is made in person by Mr Abdul Sultan, a scientist. At one time he ran an Aids clinic with a Dr Sharp who was struck off some time in 1989 in proceedings before the General Medical Council ("GMC"), based upon the complaint of two doctors, Dr Pinching and Dr Helbert.
2. In 1991, and again in 1998, Mr Sultan, whose own career has been adversely affected by the striking off of Dr Sharp, tried to get the GMC to lay charges against those two doctors. On both occasions the GMC declined, having considered the evidence but concluding that it was not sufficient to warrant proceedings.
3. Mr Sultan did not seek judicial review of either of these decisions. He tells me he knew nothing of judicial review. Instead, in 2000, he tried again to get the GMC to bring proceedings, citing, he says, new facts. The GMC again refused in these terms:

"The members have given very careful consideration to your complaint and to the points which you have made. It is their view that your complaint does not raise any issue which could be regarded as so serious as to justify formal action by the GMC in relation to either Dr Helbert or Dr Pinching. The members noted that no new information has been presented to change the GMC's view from the decision made in 1998. They therefore consider this matter closed."

4. Elias J refused Mr Sultan's applications for permission to apply for judicial review because in his judgment there was no evidence that anything new and sufficient to change the GMC's mind had been advanced. I am disposed to agree with that, having listened to and followed Mr Sultan through the eight or so documents to which he has drawn to my attention, and through the two comparative lists of documents before and after his recent application to the GMC showing how many more documents he has relied upon (although many of them are of some antiquity) in his latest endeavour to have proceedings brought against the two doctors.
5. The further material includes a tape recording of a conversation conducted by Dr Sharp showing that on at least that occasion he was not promising a cure. It includes a comment made by Dr Pinching, in a statement to the High Court in 1996, to the effect that a better course for the GMC was that the use of investigative journalists might otherwise be one way of dealing with what he perceived as the problem. It includes documents which Mr Sultan says show that he and Dr Sharp acted responsibly. It also includes the refusal of the GMC to disclose documents concerning disciplinary proceedings against some five other doctors who, Mr Sultan says, like Dr Sharp, have committed no more serious an offence than not using AZT as the preferred means of therapy. While some of this may have been brought to the GMC's attention for the first time, it does not follow that any of it was capable of changing the overall picture.
6. There is a second ground for the GMC's refusal. It is not merely that in the passage I have quoted they took the view there was nothing new; it was that in their view the material did not add up to a sufficient case to justify formal action against either doctor. The GMC is par excellence the right body to take such a decision, and it is only if it is shown to have erred in law, or to have committed some fundamental breach of procedure, or to have utterly misunderstood the facts that this court could consider intervening.
7. Mr Sultan has sensibly said to me that he does not want permission to appeal unless he has a decent chance of success, because of the cost implications involved. Usually I have to point this out to litigants. It is a relief to see that Mr Sultan is aware of the implications. If I were to give him permission to appeal I would be sending him into the cannon's mouth. He would, in my judgment, lose and the purpose of a permission application such as this would be frustrated.
8. In my judgment, none of what he has shown me amounts to a sufficient case to impugn the refusal of the GMC to initiate proceedings against these two doctors. Hard though Mr Sultan has worked on trying to assemble a case against them, it would not be a case in which this court, or the Administrative Court, would dream of interfering with the GMC's decision, however unwelcome it is to Mr Sultan.
9. For those reasons, I would refuse permission to appeal.