SOS group starts legal action over Charter petition
The legal proceedings
The SOS group has submitted its case to the Chancery
Division of the High Court of Justice. The Chancery Division is
one of three
divisions in the High Court and it undertakes civil work.
The first step of the legal proceedings is for the defendants
to be served writs. They are then given a specified length
of time to
decide whether or not they wish to defend themselves against
the claims. If they do, then the case is submitted to the High
Court
to be listed for an initial hearing date. It can take as long
as two or three months to get a hearing date, although some
cases are
heard much more quickly. At the initial hearing, it is decided
whether or not the case will be accepted for a full hearing
or thrown out.
If the case is accepted then a date is set for the full hearing.
Again, this date could be several months later. |
The Save Our Society group has started legal proceedings against named
members of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's Council over the Council's
petition for a new Royal Charter. However, the President has said that
the Council remains confident of its position.
The SOS action is being taken against the 16 members of Council who voted
in support of petitioning for a new Royal Charter at the December Council
meeting (PJ, 13 December 2003, p801). The Society is named as a 17th
defendant as “a necessary and proper, but nominal, party to these
proceedings”. SOS member Graham Phillips commented: “No action
is being taken against the other eight council members.” He stressed
that this is not an attack on the Society.
Mr Phillips explained that an opening “statement of case” was
submitted to the High Court on 23 January. This outlines the detail of
the claim being made by the five pharmacists who are bringing the action — Mark
Koziol, Graham Phillips, Maurice Hickey, Mike Williams and Hassan Argomandkhah.
High Court case started by SOS group
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The case is based on the argument that, in petitioning for a new Charter,
the defendants acted outside the current Charter. The claimants say that
the Council members did not follow proper procedure, specifically that
set out in Article 20, which provides the mechanism for changing the
Charter. They also claim that the defendants ignored the
resolutions passed at last June’s special general meeting and did
not obtain a mandate from members of the Society.
The President of the Society, Gill Hawksworth, said: “We shall
of course be resisting this claim and seeking a decision as soon as possible.
The Council is confident it has acted entirely properly in this matter
in the interests of the Society to create an effective, modern Charter
that will underpin the Society’s key functions of professional
leadership and development into the future.”
Dr Hawksworth said that the profession could continue to have confidence
in the Council’s decision-making process on the petition for a
new Charter. “The process has been completely proper, rigorous
and transparent. All the decisions on the new Charter have been taken
by the Council in formal sessions and in open business and so are open
to scrutiny.” The Society added that it is unable to make any detailed
comments at this time in the light of the Court action.
In the statement of case, the SOS group describe the outcomes they are
seeking. They want a declaration that the defendants acted outside their
powers, an injunction to prevent continued pursuit of a new Charter and
the withdrawal of the current petition. They are also seeking to restrain
the Society from funding the defendants’ costs.
Comment, p108
Correction
The list of pharmacists bringing legal proceedings against named members of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Council, which was supplied to The Journal by the Save Our Society group, should not have included Maurice Hickey. |
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal