Scottish Human Rights Law Group

The Sheriff Principal upheld, on grounds of the standards of fairness contained in Articles 5 and 6 ECHR, a patient’s appeal against the respondent tribunal’s refusal to adjourn her application for the revocation of a compulsory treatment order. 

The tribunal had given the patient only two days’ notice of the hearing.   She instructed within this period a solicitor who had not previously represented her and who only saw the papers 10 minutes before the hearing.  The grounds given by the Tribunal for refusing the patient’s application for an adjournment – namely that the hospital team had longstanding knowledge of the patient and that her interests would be fully represented – were found only to highlight the imbalance between the positions of the respective parties and the unfairness in the procedure adopted which was such as to deny the patient of any possibility of meaningful participation in the proceedings because she was not in a position to challenge the expert views expressed by the hospital team.

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