Counter-petition lodged with Privy Council
A formal counter-petition against the Council of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's petition for a new Royal Charter has been lodged with the Privy Council. It is unprecedented in recent years for the Privy Council to receive such a counter-petition.
In addition, the Privy Council has received a number of representations
from other parties during its consultation period on the Council’s
petition for a new Charter, which ended on 23 January.
The next stage of the process would have been for the Privy Council to
consider the Council’s petition and the concerns raised in the
representations made to it. However, The Journal understands
that consideration of the Council’s petition may now be put on
ice. This is because one possible outcome of the legal
proceedings against
the Council’s
petition is that the petition might fall.
The counter-petition was submitted by members of the Save Our Society
group. It requests that the Queen refuses to accede to the Council’s
petition and defers consideration of it until after the outcome of the
SOS group’s High Court action. This, it says, will determine the
legal validity of the actions of the majority of Council members in presenting
the petition.
The counter-petition states that the Council does not exist as a “legal
person” and is not competent to petition. It says that the appropriate
person to petition is the Society, supporting this with a statement from
guidance on the Privy Council website that says: “Where the petitioning
body is already incorporated, the petition should be submitted in the
name of the body concerned and be under its corporate seal duly attested.” Further,
the counter-petition adds that another part of this guidance says: “The
petition should state the authority (eg, resolution of a meeting of members)
under which it is submitted.” It claims that there has been no
such resolution in this case.
Other representations have been made to the Privy Council. Among them,
the Young Pharmacists’ Group writes that the change of emphasis
of how the Society looks after distressed and poorer members of the profession
could “seriously disadvantage younger pharmacists especially in
light of student debt”. |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal