United Kingdom's Tribunal System Reforms - Essay Example

? United Kingdom’s Tribunal System Reforms Contemplation about tribunal reform in the United Kingdom began in 2006. Several legislations were prepared to contribute to the reform. Among these were the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Bill 2007. The Franks Report in 1957 did a comprehensive review of tribunals. Sir Oliver Franks gave openness, impartiality and fairness as the three principles to govern tribunal operations (Franks Report 1957, p.7). Sir Andrew Leggatt, a retired Lord Justice of Appeal headed the Leggatt review in 2001 also made several recommendations (Leggatt report 2001, pp.13). The government’s White Paper 2004 implemented these reviews’ recommendations gave birth to the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council that replaced the old body, Council of tribunal (White Paper 2004, p.8). In 2005, the government established the Tribunal’s service as an executive agency of the Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA). Its function would be to accommodate the chief government run tribunals (Buck 2005, p.6). Following the appointment of Lord Justice Carwath as the first Senior President-designate of Tribunals, there was a publication of a Draft Bill in 2006. In November the same year, the House of Lords received the Tribunals, courts and Enforcement Bill (Buck 2006, pp 458-484) .There were a number of reasons for the reforms. First and foremost was in relation to the availability of reported decisions. The tribunal users experienced a lot of delays before they received responses to their applications and appeals. For this reason, the House of Commons made an inquiry into the Social Security and Child Support Commissioners (2000, pp 6-15). Some jurisdictions lacked hard copy reports while others had poor electronic media submission of reports. Secondly, the method of selection of cases varied amongst the jurisdictions. Rather than depend on rational thinking to select cases, tribunals depended on their historical development and procedural rules. Third, tribunals developed a common law system instead of a case-law system. This reduced their flexibility in determining case. Moreover, it watered down the role of a tribunal which is to avoid a formal doctrine that would result in binding precedents (Farmer 1974, p.21). The tribunal system experienced real change after the creation of the Councils of Tribunals. In 2008, the Upper Tribunal and the First-tier Tribunal were created. These two tribunals replaced the abundance of tribunals that were there before. In addition to that, there was a harmonization of procedures. Consequently, this reduced cases of separate jurisdictions each with their own procedure and system. A total of 107 tribunals were transferred into these two. However, the Employment Tribunal and the Employment Appeal Tribunal maintained their jurisdictions (Industrial Law Journal 2009, p. 418). The tribunals are divided into chambers. Each chamber takes up a general title dealing with issues that relate to the title. In light of the above discussion, tribunals deal with a range of issues. One of the issues at hand is the government’s proposal to give tribunals the power to oversee euthanasia or assisted suicide. Regulation of euthanasia under criminal law remains to be a contentious issue in medical law. According to Smith, England’s law makers have remained adamant in charting a clear way to handle this issue (1996, p.335). As it stands right now, England’s courts and legislators are not willing to remove the objection to the practice of euthanasia. Criminal law considers any wrongful act that leads to the loss of life as homicide. The most common of such acts is murder which earns one life imprisonment. A deliberate act of ending a life is murder. Therefore, even if a doctor ends a life upon the patient’s request, the law classifies his act as that of murder. There are cases where doctors have been charged with murder where they performed euthanasia. Dr. John Bodkin Adams, administered painkillers (The Times 1981, p. 1, 12). However, the patient died. Dr. Leonard Arthur’s patient died after the doctor failed to administer treatment. The courts have remained uncertain on euthanasia, especially cases that regard infants. It remains unclear under which circumstances doctors should continue with further treatment and under which they should limit treatment. This played out in the Re C and Re J cases. In the Re C case, the child was moribund (All England Law Reports 1989, p. 782). The hospital sought authority that would stop them from administering naso- gastric feeding or antibiotics should it be necessary. The court approved of this. In contrast to this, the child in case Re J was not dying as all England Law Report stated (1990, pp.930). He had severe brain damage from which he had fits. Thus, he needed assistance in breathing. In this case, the court decided that it did not have any legal obligation to make a decision. Whether to resuscitate the child or not, was up to the doctor and the parents. In his review, Dr.Tallis argues that the provision of clear legislation will go a long way in removing the ambiguity of the situation (2007, p.9). He advocates for legalization of assisted suicide for patients that are terminally ill and undergoing intolerable pain. The Dutch government also faced the same crisis, not knowing under which circumstances to allow euthanasia and assisted suicide. However, in 2001, The Dutch government enacted a legislation that allowed children as young as 12 years to undergo either procedure (Gorsuch 2006, pp.163). This would only happen after the medical practitioners had established that the child was undergoing intolerable suffering. Gorsuch argues that if people who request euthanasia receive it, this provision should also be there for those who may want it but are not courageous to ask for it (2007, pp.330). In other words, the doctor should be at liberty to carry out euthanasia or assisted suicide once they establish that the patient is suffering. Once they do this, the society should not condemn doctors. With such debates, it is difficult to understand how tribunals will handle euthanasia and assisted suicide. One may argue that these tribunals have undergone transformation recently, and may be early to give them such a sensitive issue to handle. Secondly, it appears as though the main court system is avoiding dealing with the issue at hand once and for all. Thus, they are throwing it to the tribunals to handle the matter. However, another school of thought may hold that tribunals are best placed to handle cases regarding euthanasia and assisted suicide. This is because the nature of tribunals is that they are informal and handle each case independently. By following a case-law system, they do not set precedents for future reference. Thus, one cannot use a past case to argue out their way in a present case. Secondly, treating each case independently will enable tribunal judges to make better decisions than their counterparts since they will do thorough scrutiny of the information at hand. In conclusion, Tribunals have come a long way. The reforms will contribute significantly to better service delivery. Streamlining the system has ensured that there are less, if no discrepancies in the procedures applied. People are assured of quality service. However, with regards to giving the tribunal's jurisdiction over euthanasia and assisted suicide, the UK government needs to do thorough research on its pros and cons. In addition to that, legislation needs to give clear directions concerning the matte References Buck, T 2005, “Administrative Justice and Alternative Dispute Resolution: the Australian experience,” Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA), DCA Research Series 9/05, DCA, London, p.6. Buck, T 2006, ‘Precedent in Tribunals and The Development of Principles,’ Civil Justice Quarterly, Vol. 25(4) pp.458-484. Farmer, J.A.1974, Tribunals and Government, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, pp.21. Franks report (1957) Report of the Committee on Administrative, Tribunals and Enquiries, p.7. Gorsuch, NM 2006, The future of assisted suicide and euthanasia, Princeton University Press, pp.163. Gorsuch, NM 2007, “A reply to Raymond Tallis on the Legalization of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia,” The Journal of Legal Medicine, pp.330. House of Commons Select Committee, 2000, “Social Security and Child Support Commissioners: Fourth Report of session 1999-2000,” pp.6-15. Leggatt report (2001) Tribunals for Users–One System, One Service: report of the review of tribunals, The Stationery Office, London, pp.13. Re C (a minor) (wardship: medical treatment). 1989, All England Law Reports, pp. 782. Re J (a minor: wardship: medical treatment). 1990, All England Law Reports, pp. 930. Smith, M.A 1996, Euthanasia: the law in the United Kingdom, British Medical Buletin, pp.334. Something Old, Something New: the New Tribunal System, 2009, Industrial Law Journal, Industrial Law Society, Vol. 38, No. 4, pp.418. Tallis, R Jan 24 2007, “Stop Me,” Times Literary, London,p.9. The Times, 6 November 1981; p.1, 12. White Paper (2004), Transforming Public Services: Complaints, Redress and Tribunals, Cm 6243, The Stationery Office, London, p.8. Read More