Arzhangi, R (on the application of) v General Medical Council

Where a professional disciplinary finding and initial conditions have become final, a later challenge to varied conditions cannot reopen the underlying findings. The court considers the conditions by reference to public protection and proportionality. Conditions may make employment more difficult, but that consequence does not invalidate conditions which are otherwise necessary and appropriate. A claimant must challenge the original decision within the applicable time, rather than recast dissatisfaction with that decision as a challenge to a later variation.

The claimant challenged the General Medical Council Professional Conduct Committee’s decision of 30 September 2004 varying conditions on his registration. The proceedings were procedurally unclear, appearing either to be a statutory appeal out of time or an application for permission to apply for judicial review out of time. Earlier judicial review proceedings had been dismissed following failure to serve the GMC. The claimant’s substantive complaint was that conditions should never have been imposed, because he disputed the finding of serious professional misconduct made in September 2003. The central issue was whether the varied conditions were open to challenge on that basis.

1. The application was dismissed. The court left questions of procedural form and delay aside because the substantive challenge had no merit.
2. The claimant could no longer challenge the September 2003 finding of serious professional misconduct or the original imposition of conditions. Those matters were treated as the starting point for the review of the 2004 decision.
3. The claimant had failed, as a matter of fact, to comply with three conditions because ill-health and other difficulties had prevented him from undertaking medical practice. The Committee was entitled to consider the appropriate protective response.
4. The Committee had considered erasure but concluded that it would be disproportionate and that conditions would adequately protect the public. It was entitled to vary the conditions so that the claimant could address deficiencies in his practice without remaining in a training post, while avoiding unnecessary impediments to employment.
5. The conditions were, considered individually, appropriate and sensible. The possibility that they might make employment more difficult did not make them unlawful. Given the previous professional misconduct finding and its circumstances, the Committee was fully entitled to insist that any further practice should be subject to conditions of this kind.
6. The GMC was awarded its costs. The costs were summarily assessed at £5,000 including VAT.

The judgment describes earlier judicial review proceedings which were dismissed after the claimant failed to serve the documents on the GMC. No citation for that decision is stated. The present application was dismissed.