Adjourning Disciplinary Proceedings - Tait V RCVS

Should a disciplinary tribunal proceed to hear charges against a person who fails to attend a hearing, or should it grant an adjournment? Can it ever be fair to decide a disciplinary case without hearing one side of the argument? These were the issues considered by the Privy Council in the recent case of Tait v Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons [2003] UKPC 34.

The decision in Tait

Mr Tait was a veterinary surgeon whom the RCVS charged with "disgraceful conduct in a professional respect". He failed to attend the hearing before the RCVS Disciplinary Committee, and the hearing was adjourned. He then failed to attend the adjourned hearing, but wrote requesting a second adjournment on grounds of ill health, although he did not provide any medical evidence. The Committee refused the request and proceeded to hear the charges against Mr Tait in his absence. It found him guilty of two charges and ordered that his name be removed from the register of veterinary surgeons.

The Privy Council allowed Mr Tait's appeal. It held that the Committee had applied the wrong legal test because it had been incorrectly advised that it had "absolute discretion" as to whether an adjournment should be granted. The proper test was that which had been set out by Lord Bingham in R v Jones [2002] 2 WLR 524. Since the Disciplinary Committee had not addressed the questions set out by Lord Bingham in that case, its decision was quashed.

Jones was a case concerning the criminal trial of a defendant who had deliberately absconded while on bail. Lord Bingham held that a court had a discretion to commence a trial in the absence of a defendant who chose not to appear, but that the discretion was "to be exercised with the utmost care and caution". He added that, if the defendant's absence were attributable to involuntary illness or incapacity, it would "very rarely, if ever" be right to commence the trial, unless he was legally represented and asked that the trial should begin.

Lord Bingham also referred to a list of matters to be taken into account in exercising the discretion, which had been set out by the Court of Appeal. They included whether the defendant's absence was voluntary, whether he would be likely to attend after an adjournment, the extent to which he would be disadvantaged by not being able to give his account of events, the risk of reaching an improper conclusion about his absence, and the seriousness of the offence. Lord Bingham endorsed this list, except...