A family lawyer and NLJ columnist has called for the use of independent assessors rather than family courts to resolve complex inquiries such as the Charlie Gard case.
Writing in this week’s NLJ, solicitor David Burrows recalls the complexities surrounding the case of Charlie Gard, Re Gard (A Child) [2017] EWHC 1909 (Fam), [2017] All ER (D) 148, who had severe brain damage and could not see, hear or breathe unaided.
Burrows questions whether courts are the best places to resolve such difficult issues. Instead, a little-used procedure could help—the Senior Courts Act 1981,
s 70(1), under the heading ‘Assessors and scientific advisers’.
Burrows says: ‘In Charlie’s case, where the parents had no legal aid, an assessor independent from the hospital (paid for by the hospital, whose staff would then be largely released from attending court to give evidence) might have gone a little way to help them to feel they had a fair trial with medical evidence separate from the hospital which made the court application.’
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