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Registration of Charities
1400 of exercising fully those aspects of judgment and understanding of the quality of her acts as a normal person would; she would not have known that promiscuous sexual intercourse was wrong.
Registration of Charities THE Charities Act, 1960, provides for the maintenance by the Charity Commissioners of a register of charities. As from Jan. 1, 1961, new charities (with certain exceptions) must supply particulars for inclusion in the register.
Mr. Commissioner LATEY, Q.c., said that he fully accepted the evidence and opinion of the psychiatrist. That evidence brought the intervener within the second limb of the McNaughten rules. The Court of Appeal had decided in recent years that both limbs of those rules applied to the matrimonial offence of cruelty. Counsel for the Official Solicitor had submitted that both limbs of the rules equally applied to adultery. That submission was accepted. It followed that the intervener could not be found guilty of adultery. The wife would therefore be granted a decree nisi on the ground that the husband had committed adultery with a woman against whom the
charge
Existing charities are to be registered by stages: on June 22, there came into force an order requiring the registration of charities existing wholly or mainly for the benefit of places in Bedfordshire or Surrey (including Croydon). Orders extending the Act to other parts of the country are to follow in due course. Registration by the Commissioners is conclusive evidence for nearly all purposes (including relief from income-tax and rates) that an institution is a charity. The Act also empowers local authorities to maintain indexes of local charities, and with the consent of the trustees to review the working of any group of charities. Charities are enabled to work with each other and with local authorities, and the courts are given larger powers to extend the scope of charities whose objects have become obsolete.
proved.
was not S. v. S. and 0. Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty Division: Mr. Commissioner Latey, Q.c. June 9, 1961. Counsel and solicitors: Mark Smith (W. H. Matthews & Co., Sutton, Surrey); H. M. Self (J. I. Humphries and Co.); L. I. Stranger-Jones (Official Solicitor); Duncan Ranking (P. Lupton, Law Society).
The result should be the charitable institutions and the funds of older charities.
D. R. ELLISON Barrister-at-Law.
more
efficient
working of productive use of the
said that if a doctor had broken the law, he could be prosecuted. If he had damnified any person, he could be sued for damages. In the general run of cases, these remedies were purely theoretical, especially if one embarked on the expensive and perilous task of claiming damages in a civil court. Mr. Lipton admitted that it might be argued that if the names were published, the penalty might be out of all proportion to the gravity of what the practitioner had done wrong. But in his view, the British public could make a shrewd judgment of what was a serious offence or merely a technical offence. The public could also assess at its true value the genuineness of a spiteful crank or patient making ill-founded allegations. Non-publication was merely a convenient arrangement between the Minister and the medical profession. The Sunday Pictorial had lately published two names and had received no threat of legal proceedings. Mr. Lipton suggested that if legal proceedings for publication could have been instituted, the doctor or dentist concerned, with all the special machinery at his disposal, would have slapped in a writ long ago.
Parliament Naming
more
the Fined
ON the adjournment on June 16 Mr. MARCUS LIPTON asked the Minister of Health for an assurance that the names of doctors and dentists should be published when a local health executive " withheld pay for breach of contract ". He used this official phrase, but he would himself have preferred to describe the procedure as " fining doctors found guilty of neglecting their duty towards their patients ". He submitted that the public interest required that the names should be known. The medical profession was protected by a privileged phalanx, including the Minister of Health, his medical advisory committee, the General Medical Council, the British Medical Association executive, and local health executive councils throughout the country and, in the background the protection societies. During each of the last three years the number of doctors and dentists fined and the amount of the fines had been: 86 doctors and dentists, E3941; 81 doctors and dentists, E3978; 120 doctors and dentists £3914. The number of guilty doctors and dentists appeared to be going up and the average fine, or amount of pay withheld, going down. Was the degree of guilt getting less, or were executive councils getting more lenient ? How many of the guilty men appealed to the Minister against decisions of the executive councils, and how often did the Minister increase or reduce the fines; how often did the Minister refer really bad cases to the General Medical Council for further disciplinary action.
Miss EDITH PITT, parliamentary secretary to the Ministry, pointed out chat the purpose of the service committee procedure was simply to consider whether a practitioner had complied terms of service. It was not to decide between two The courts were available if a complainant sought parties. Nor was it to punish an offence. This was also for damages. the courts. Nor was it to determine whether a practitioner was fit to practise. This was for the General Medical Council or other professional registration body and, in relation to the National Health Service, for the Tribunal. The strongest reason for the non-publication of names was that the service committee procedure was a matter arising out of the contract, and was in addition to, not in substitution for, the patient’s right of recourse to the courts, civil and criminal.
with his
As to publishing the names, Mr. Lipton said, the Minister took the view that there was a contract between the practitioner and the executive council to which the patient was not a party. From the point of view of the unfortunate victim of what was euphemistically called a contract, this was a bit specious. In the ordinary case of a breach of contract the aggrieved party was a party to the contract. It would help to hold the scales of justice a little more evenly balanced if the name of the guilty doctor was published, not merely as a deterrent to the guilty doctor, but also for the sake of other patients in the guilty doctor’s care, who were entitled to know what kind of person that doctor was. It would also be fairer to other doctors in the neighbourhood who came under a cloud of suspicion whenever a doctor was fined. A doctor in the National Health Service was a public servant, doing a public duty for which he was paid out of public funds. It was not: unreasonable to suggest that the public was entitled to know for its own protection who was not doing his job. The Minister ’
The number of cases where remuneration was withheld had tended to diminish in recent years as compared with the early years of the service. Up to the end of 1960, details of 232 cases had been referred by the Minister to the General Medical Council, and 284 cases to the General Dental Council. The number of serious cases was small. In 1960, only 370 complaints were investigated by medical service committees throughout England and Wales. In only 87 of these was the doctor found to have failed to carry out his obligations. Of the 87, only 37 were sufficiently serious to warrant a withholding of remuneration. The procedure of reference to the National Health Service Tribunal was available in those few cases where it was thought that the doctor had shown by his behaviour that his continued participation in the general medical service
Registration of Charities THE Charities Act, 1960, provides for the maintenance by the Charity Commissioners of a register of charities. As from Jan. 1, 1961, new charities (with certain exceptions) must supply particulars for inclusion in the register.
Mr. Commissioner LATEY, Q.c., said that he fully accepted the evidence and opinion of the psychiatrist. That evidence brought the intervener within the second limb of the McNaughten rules. The Court of Appeal had decided in recent years that both limbs of those rules applied to the matrimonial offence of cruelty. Counsel for the Official Solicitor had submitted that both limbs of the rules equally applied to adultery. That submission was accepted. It followed that the intervener could not be found guilty of adultery. The wife would therefore be granted a decree nisi on the ground that the husband had committed adultery with a woman against whom the
charge
Existing charities are to be registered by stages: on June 22, there came into force an order requiring the registration of charities existing wholly or mainly for the benefit of places in Bedfordshire or Surrey (including Croydon). Orders extending the Act to other parts of the country are to follow in due course. Registration by the Commissioners is conclusive evidence for nearly all purposes (including relief from income-tax and rates) that an institution is a charity. The Act also empowers local authorities to maintain indexes of local charities, and with the consent of the trustees to review the working of any group of charities. Charities are enabled to work with each other and with local authorities, and the courts are given larger powers to extend the scope of charities whose objects have become obsolete.
proved.
was not S. v. S. and 0. Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty Division: Mr. Commissioner Latey, Q.c. June 9, 1961. Counsel and solicitors: Mark Smith (W. H. Matthews & Co., Sutton, Surrey); H. M. Self (J. I. Humphries and Co.); L. I. Stranger-Jones (Official Solicitor); Duncan Ranking (P. Lupton, Law Society).
The result should be the charitable institutions and the funds of older charities.
D. R. ELLISON Barrister-at-Law.
more
efficient
working of productive use of the
said that if a doctor had broken the law, he could be prosecuted. If he had damnified any person, he could be sued for damages. In the general run of cases, these remedies were purely theoretical, especially if one embarked on the expensive and perilous task of claiming damages in a civil court. Mr. Lipton admitted that it might be argued that if the names were published, the penalty might be out of all proportion to the gravity of what the practitioner had done wrong. But in his view, the British public could make a shrewd judgment of what was a serious offence or merely a technical offence. The public could also assess at its true value the genuineness of a spiteful crank or patient making ill-founded allegations. Non-publication was merely a convenient arrangement between the Minister and the medical profession. The Sunday Pictorial had lately published two names and had received no threat of legal proceedings. Mr. Lipton suggested that if legal proceedings for publication could have been instituted, the doctor or dentist concerned, with all the special machinery at his disposal, would have slapped in a writ long ago.
Parliament Naming
more
the Fined
ON the adjournment on June 16 Mr. MARCUS LIPTON asked the Minister of Health for an assurance that the names of doctors and dentists should be published when a local health executive " withheld pay for breach of contract ". He used this official phrase, but he would himself have preferred to describe the procedure as " fining doctors found guilty of neglecting their duty towards their patients ". He submitted that the public interest required that the names should be known. The medical profession was protected by a privileged phalanx, including the Minister of Health, his medical advisory committee, the General Medical Council, the British Medical Association executive, and local health executive councils throughout the country and, in the background the protection societies. During each of the last three years the number of doctors and dentists fined and the amount of the fines had been: 86 doctors and dentists, E3941; 81 doctors and dentists, E3978; 120 doctors and dentists £3914. The number of guilty doctors and dentists appeared to be going up and the average fine, or amount of pay withheld, going down. Was the degree of guilt getting less, or were executive councils getting more lenient ? How many of the guilty men appealed to the Minister against decisions of the executive councils, and how often did the Minister increase or reduce the fines; how often did the Minister refer really bad cases to the General Medical Council for further disciplinary action.
Miss EDITH PITT, parliamentary secretary to the Ministry, pointed out chat the purpose of the service committee procedure was simply to consider whether a practitioner had complied terms of service. It was not to decide between two The courts were available if a complainant sought parties. Nor was it to punish an offence. This was also for damages. the courts. Nor was it to determine whether a practitioner was fit to practise. This was for the General Medical Council or other professional registration body and, in relation to the National Health Service, for the Tribunal. The strongest reason for the non-publication of names was that the service committee procedure was a matter arising out of the contract, and was in addition to, not in substitution for, the patient’s right of recourse to the courts, civil and criminal.
with his
As to publishing the names, Mr. Lipton said, the Minister took the view that there was a contract between the practitioner and the executive council to which the patient was not a party. From the point of view of the unfortunate victim of what was euphemistically called a contract, this was a bit specious. In the ordinary case of a breach of contract the aggrieved party was a party to the contract. It would help to hold the scales of justice a little more evenly balanced if the name of the guilty doctor was published, not merely as a deterrent to the guilty doctor, but also for the sake of other patients in the guilty doctor’s care, who were entitled to know what kind of person that doctor was. It would also be fairer to other doctors in the neighbourhood who came under a cloud of suspicion whenever a doctor was fined. A doctor in the National Health Service was a public servant, doing a public duty for which he was paid out of public funds. It was not: unreasonable to suggest that the public was entitled to know for its own protection who was not doing his job. The Minister ’
The number of cases where remuneration was withheld had tended to diminish in recent years as compared with the early years of the service. Up to the end of 1960, details of 232 cases had been referred by the Minister to the General Medical Council, and 284 cases to the General Dental Council. The number of serious cases was small. In 1960, only 370 complaints were investigated by medical service committees throughout England and Wales. In only 87 of these was the doctor found to have failed to carry out his obligations. Of the 87, only 37 were sufficiently serious to warrant a withholding of remuneration. The procedure of reference to the National Health Service Tribunal was available in those few cases where it was thought that the doctor had shown by his behaviour that his continued participation in the general medical service