[Bev]

Chris Grayling has ordered an urgent review of a controversial court that has the power to make life-or-death decisions – and even send people to jail – in secret.

The Justice Secretary last night asked one of the country’s most senior judges to consider steps to increase the transparency of the shadowy Court of Protection.

Set up in 2007 under Labour’s Mental Capacity Act, it gave the state draconian powers to intervene in the lives of those deemed unfit to look after their own affairs.

Controversy increased when the Daily Mail revealed last month that a woman had been jailed in secret after trying to remove her father from a care home where his family thought he was in danger of dying.

A judge ruled Wanda Maddocks, 50, should go to prison for five months for contempt of court even though she was not present or represented by a lawyer.

She is the first person known to have been imprisoned by the Court of Protection.

Several senior MPs expressed alarm at the case and suggested the Government should review its procedures.

Now the Justice Secretary has written to Sir James Munby, President of the Family Division of the High Court of England and Wales, asking him to expand an existing review of the family courts to consider the use of secret hearings in the Court of Protection.



‘We have already agreed there is a need for greater openness in the family courts, with the intention that we make progress on this as soon as possible in order to ensure public confidence . . .’ he wrote in a letter seen by the Daily Mail.

‘As you will be aware, the issue of transparency in the Court of Protection has also recently attracted media attention.


'While we want to ensure that we balance the interests of safeguarding vulnerable adults with those of increasing the transparency of proceedings, I would welcome your views on how we might best achieve this.

‘Therefore I would like to invite you to consider if you might extend the scope of your work on transparency in the family courts to include arrangements for the Court of Protection.’

Ministers are expected to hold a meeting in the next few weeks with Sir James on how the review will proceed.


A Ministry of Justice source said Mr Grayling had been ‘deeply concerned’ by the idea of people being jailed in their absence and without any public scrutiny and believed reforms must be considered.

MP John Hemming, chairman of the all-party Parliamentary Group on Family Law and the Court of Protection, said: ‘At last the Government has stopped being complacent and pretending there is no problem.

‘They have been ignoring this issue for years. The Wanda Maddocks case was one where she was imprisoned for taking her father to a solicitor to get legal advice to prove that the courts were wrong.

'That can’t be right. There is a general problem of secrecy right across the family courts. If the legal system won’t stand up to public scrutiny there is something wrong with the legal system – not with public scrutiny.’

Former Liberal Democrat care minister Paul Burstow, who has been critical of the court, welcomed the move.

‘I think a review is timely and should allow us to ensure justice is being seen to be done. We need to bring this more into the light so people understand how this court does its job.

‘It’s also vital that where decisions are being made that have a very direct and considerable impact on families’ lives, that every effort is made to ensure that they actually know what is going on.’

Miss Maddocks was jailed for taking her father John out of his care home against the instructions of a court order that he should not be moved.

She served six weeks of her sentence. A judge ruled Miss Maddocks was causing her father ‘very considerable grief’ and ‘it seems to be only right she should go to prison’.


The Court of Protection, which handles 24,540 cases a year of which 2,700 involve the Official Solicitor, is increasingly being asked to sanction key medical decisions that will either prolong a patient’s life or allow death to take its course.

It also intervenes in other business involving property, financial affairs, divorce and other civil disputes when a person is deemed unable to make decisions.

Set up by the last government, the court was given powers to sit in secret. In practice, it has never opened to the public and only its final judgments are occasionally made available beyond the courtroom.

Niri Shan, a contempt expert with the law firm Taylor Wessing, said: ‘This is in every practical way a secret court. This is troubling. Five months is a long sentence. It is rare that a court will sentence someone to five months for contempt.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...rotection.html