I have been reading some of the posts by the wonderful Court Protection transparency project recently, and noticed that there was a number of them exploring the issue of contempt of court within Court of Protection proceedings. One of them in particular, commented on what appeared to be a significant difference between the consequences forContinue reading “Disparity of consequences: What happens if you don’t comply with a Court of Protection order? Part 1”
Tag Archives: law in practice
What didn’t make the news – the trouble with legal aid right now
I find it very interesting that whilst the outage of Marks & Spencer’s website due to a data hack made front line news a number of times, there has been zero mention of a website outage that is actually far more important: the Legal Aid Agency’s online portal. Both happened at very similar times. NotContinue reading “What didn’t make the news – the trouble with legal aid right now”
An inpatient hospital stay – the gulf between the textbooks and the real world
I recently had a lengthy stay in hospital. The reason for that stay isn’t particularly important. But it provided an interesting opportunity to observe the implementation of the legal frameworks I work in, on the frontline. Let’s start with privacy Medical professionals are very keen on privacy. They talk about patient confidentiality a lot. EvenContinue reading “An inpatient hospital stay – the gulf between the textbooks and the real world”
Anticipatory declarations: a pragmatic view
You may or may not have read some of the reports about the Leicestershire case in which the court confirmed it does have jurisdiction to make anticipatory declarations. Such declarations are generally sought in situations where P has capacity at the relevant time, but a loss of capacity is expected and there is a needContinue reading “Anticipatory declarations: a pragmatic view”
Wishes and feelings statements: getting to know P
I am often asked by family members how the Official Solicitor and the court can make decisions about P without knowing them. More often than not, this is followed by comments about how they know P best so they should be able to make all of P’s decisions. That follow up is problematic, for aContinue reading “Wishes and feelings statements: getting to know P”
Will the hearing be vacated? Too many variables to factor in
I’m regularly asked if hearings are going to go ahead many weeks before that hearing is listed. And I’m often surprised that people don’t understand why it is too soon to give any answer that isn’t “yes”. So I’m going to explore that a bit. For anyone that is regularly involved in Court of ProtectionContinue reading “Will the hearing be vacated? Too many variables to factor in”
Reflections on language use: “deemed to have capacity”
This is probably me just being a little pedantic. But I have an issue with being told people are “deemed” to have capacity. Even more so they are “deemed” to lack capacity I think it’s mainly due to the lack of precision in the term “deem”. The dictionary definition of “deem” is “to have anContinue reading “Reflections on language use: “deemed to have capacity””
I don’t think you really thought this through. Proceedings so ill-conceived it’s painful
I am prone to overthinking, so I tend to spend a lot of time thinking about what other parties to any particular case might be thinking and planning, identifying what advice I might give them, and strategizing accordingly. But this case really has me stumped. So today’s post is based on a current case ofContinue reading “I don’t think you really thought this through. Proceedings so ill-conceived it’s painful”
Making the public body’s point for them: what not to do as a family member in the Court of Protection – part 2
In my last post, I gave an example of S and T. S is the subject of Court of Protection proceedings and T, her mother, does not agree with the decisions being made by professionals and wants S to move to a different placement. In that scenario, T’s behaviour gave the judge little option butContinue reading “Making the public body’s point for them: what not to do as a family member in the Court of Protection – part 2”
Making the public body’s point for them: what not to do as a family member in the Court of Protection – part 1
Despite the great work being done to improve transparency within the court of protection it is still largely misunderstood. Where this lack of understanding comes to the forefront, in my line of work anyway, is when P’s family members are parties to proceedings. For a variety of reasons, mainly due to the poor state ofContinue reading “Making the public body’s point for them: what not to do as a family member in the Court of Protection – part 1”