Keira Bell and Mrs A vs. Tavistock - Court of Appeal hearing 23 & 24 June 2021

[FindTheTruth]

The appeal hearing will be live streamed this Wednesday 23 & Thursday 24 June, 10:30am

Background

1. The High Court decided in Mrs A and Keira Bell’s favour on 1st December 2020 that puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones are experimental treatments which cannot be given to children in most cases without application to the court. Full details of the original case:

www.transgendertrend.com/keira-bell-high-court-historic-judgment-protect-vulnerable-children/

1. The High Court decided in the case of AB on 26 March 2021 thatPARENTScan consent to their children receiving puberty blocking treatment when their children lack the capacity to consent.

1. Court of Appeal 23 & 24 June 2021 Keira Bell and Mrs A’s legal team is dealing with legal submissions from 7 intervenors who want to see the judgement of the Divisional Court overturned. “A significant task in defending the judgement of the Divisional Court. We are facing very well resourced opponents – the Tavistock being funded by the State and the other intervenors”.

[quote Articus]@ChloeCrocodile “What is the point of judicial review, if not to determine whether a public body is correctly applying the law?”

As rabbit said it’s not a personal case where Keira’s sue the NHS (maybe this is what should happened as much as I would hate NHS money having to go into GIDS malpractice claims), it’s a higher road to prevent harm.

All support to Keira Bell. I read today that there are 36,000 girls in US waiting for double mastectomies to pretend to be boys. That is scary and also big money![/quote]
And IMHO the media fawning over ellen/elliot page has probably added to that 36000

I know this is a complicated case, but wasn't part of the reason the original decision was made to do with PB and CSH for GD being an experimental treatment? And the Tavi want to continue with this experimental treatment, so have appealed the original decision.

The question of competency changes somewhat with PB and CSH compared to known medical interventions - eg hormonal contraceptive for under 16s, surely?

We're back in the room:

Thanks - just starting to watch but won't be able to continue.
Couldn't cope with this sound level anyway!
Hyam going up first

Imagine the evening Hyam QC has just had reformulating his approach while second guessing what might be in the minds of the judges. Just thinking about it makes me feel faint.

However, the sound is presently even more difficult to handle than yesterday.

The microphone is too near the bundles.

Sarah philimore live tweeting but also can't hear well.

mobile.twitter.com/SVPhillimore/status/1407996152470028288

If you listen, hearing the judges is reasonably OK because they're sat and closer to their microphones. Counsel are standing and the desk placed microphones are mainly picking up sound local to them. One solution would be for counsel to sit but that would cramp their style.

The seagulls get picked up pretty well.

One of the judges is back to the point that this is a judicial review claim that the defendant has acted unlawfully, and the High Court judgement doesn't explain the illegality but does criticise how they acted.

The judge just doesn't see the illegality set out in the decision of the divisional court (the High Court).

Doesn't sound like the judges are happy on this legal point that Tavistock was doing anything unlawful.

I think it's more than that, the Tavistock might have been acting unlawfully in certain actions but overall their framework was not inevitably going to cause them to act unlawfully.

Therefore, the appropriate remedy should not have been via a judicial review but action taken against the specific actions.

I think Hyam QC is doing well in the circumstances in that so far he does seem to have anticipated the next curveball that comes from the judges.

That's the point isn't it - can consent be given against the backdrop of what one of the judges has just called a 'controversial treatment'.

My impression is the judges view is that maybe it can but that's in the medical domain and for doctors either to make their practice robust enough or to say it's not possible.

In fact, the judge has just said that the claimant (Bell) lost on the point that consent cannot be given by a child.

Sarah Phillimore expressed that far better than me:

twitter.com/SVPhillimore/status/1408011148662906888

Right, the discussion has moved onto this being a special treatment that needs to be handled differently. It should be interesting to see how the court responds to that.

Thanks Sarah if you ever read this.
I'm finding it hard to follow tbh

Oh dear, the line coming from the judges now is that if children are warned about the consequences: sterility, effectively no sexual function (unless as a passive entity), being a life-long medical patient on drugs that in the long term have a negative effect, then that might be sufficient.

I find that odd given the previous finding was that those issues are all so complex it was unlikely a child could consent. It’s a strange one, we draw a line to say under-16s cannot consent to sex but seem hesitant to apply a similar line here when the consequences are (just as? more?) long lasting.

Surely the key point with capacity (and presumably Gillick competency) is that it’s not enough to just be able to understand the information, the person has to be capable of weighing it up.

The judges don't want responsibility for this. They want the responsibility to lie on those making the medical decisions and for them to get their act together.

The way the judges are looking to wriggle out of this is to say there was nothing unlawful in a narrow judicial review sense.

To me the question is whether they're going to wash their hands so completely that they'll refrain from even stating that although there was no illegality, the Tavistock are acting without an evidence base.

At least one of the judges - possibly all of them - are currently completely unconvinced that the nature of the treatment has anything to do with the court. I'd be amazed if this appeal is dismissed at this point.

That's a good point Nauticant. The judgment is important even if the overall point is lost.

The appeal can be lost but it still leaves the Tavistock with a nightmare. They know they have no evidence base and they know that everyone else knows it. The world has moved on, outside the US the "foreign Tavistocks" have in some significant cases voted with their feet.

If the appellants win, what will they do with their victory in a practical sense?