Lannas, R (On the Application Of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

A professional register may require continuing participation in audit as a condition of retaining registration. Where the governing procedures allow flexibility, the decision-maker must consider whether alternative material or arrangements could achieve the audit’s purpose. A registrant who refuses to engage with that process cannot ordinarily require a further warning or a separate hearing before removal, provided the obligation and consequence were clear. The decision-maker may pursue its own regulatory standards notwithstanding a related investigation by another professional body. It is not generally irrational to act before that body reaches a conclusion. The court must respect the executive’s responsibility for maintaining standards under a scheme established under the Royal Prerogative and must not require that responsibility to be delegated.

Dr Paula Lannas sought judicial review of the decision of the Policy Advisory Board for Forensic Pathology, approved at ministerial level, to remove her name from the Home Office Register of Pathologists. The Board’s procedures required registered forensic pathologists to participate in regular audits and made retention subject to a successful audit outcome.

After an earlier disciplinary inquiry ended when the panel members recused themselves, the complaints were referred to the General Medical Council, which took no further action. The Board then requested audit material from Dr Lannas. She did not provide reports or make a constructive proposal after further correspondence. The central issues were whether the Board had acted unfairly or irrationally, and whether it should have waited for the General Medical Council’s decision.

1. Application dismissed. The Board was entitled to remove Dr Lannas’s name because she failed to submit work for audit, engaging the consequence stated in the procedures.
2. The correspondence, read as a whole, gave Dr Lannas an opportunity to co-operate and to identify alternative work if the specified period was unsuitable. The audit requirements were not inflexible. The Board could adopt a reasonable degree of flexibility to identify material capable of showing current competence.
3. Dr Lannas’s solicitor’s response did not make a constructive proposal or express willingness to co-operate. It was reasonably understood as closing the door to further engagement. That interpretation was within Wednesbury parameters.
4. No further warning or oral hearing was required. The obligation to submit reports and the consequence of non-compliance had been made clear in the correspondence and procedures. A different conclusion might have followed if Dr Lannas had proposed a workable alternative which the Board refused to consider.
5. The Board was not required to await the General Medical Council’s decision. It was entitled to pursue the Home Office scheme’s independent standards, and its decision to do so was not Wednesbury unreasonable.
6. The scheme served to maintain and raise standards in forensic pathology and public confidence in the Home Office register. Responsibility for those standards rested with the Minister acting through the Board. Requiring reliance on the General Medical Council’s process would impermissibly transfer that responsibility to a body whose standards the Minister did not control.
7. The claim was dismissed. The claimant was ordered to pay the defendant’s agreed costs of £10,945.50. Permission to appeal was refused.