1400

of exercising fully those aspects of judgment and understandingof the quality of her acts as a normal person would; she wouldnot have known that promiscuous sexual intercourse waswrong.

Mr. Commissioner LATEY, Q.c., said that he fullyaccepted the evidence and opinion of the psychiatrist.That evidence brought the intervener within the secondlimb of the McNaughten rules. The Court of Appeal haddecided in recent years that both limbs of those rulesapplied to the matrimonial offence of cruelty. Counselfor the Official Solicitor had submitted that both limbsof the rules equally applied to adultery. That submissionwas accepted. It followed that the intervener could notbe found guilty of adultery. The wife would therefore begranted a decree nisi on the ground that the husband hadcommitted adultery with a woman against whom thecharge was not proved.

S. v. S. and 0. Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty Division: Mr. Com-missioner Latey, Q.c. June 9, 1961. Counsel and solicitors: Mark Smith(W. H. Matthews & Co., Sutton, Surrey); H. M. Self (J. I. Humphries andCo.); L. I. Stranger-Jones (Official Solicitor); Duncan Ranking (P. Lupton,Law Society).

D. R. ELLISONBarrister-at-Law.D. R. ELLISONBarrister-at-Law.

Registration of CharitiesTHE Charities Act, 1960, provides for the maintenance

by the Charity Commissioners of a register of charities.As from Jan. 1, 1961, new charities (with certain excep-tions) must supply particulars for inclusion in the register.

Existing charities are to be registered by stages: on June 22,there came into force an order requiring the registration ofcharities existing wholly or mainly for the benefit of places inBedfordshire or Surrey (including Croydon). Orders extendingthe Act to other parts of the country are to follow in due course.

Registration by the Commissioners is conclusive evidencefor nearly all purposes (including relief from income-tax andrates) that an institution is a charity. The Act also empowerslocal authorities to maintain indexes of local charities, and withthe consent of the trustees to review the working of any groupof charities. Charities are enabled to work with each other andwith local authorities, and the courts are given larger powers toextend the scope of charities whose objects have becomeobsolete.

The result should be the more efficient working ofcharitable institutions and the more productive use of thefunds of older charities.

Parliament

Naming the FinedON the adjournment on June 16 Mr. MARCUS LIPTON asked

the Minister of Health for an assurance that the names ofdoctors and dentists should be published when a local healthexecutive " withheld pay for breach of contract ". He used thisofficial phrase, but he would himself have preferred to describethe procedure as " fining doctors found guilty of neglectingtheir duty towards their patients ". He submitted that thepublic interest required that the names should be known. Themedical profession was protected by a privileged phalanx,including the Minister of Health, his medical advisory com-mittee, the General Medical Council, the British MedicalAssociation executive, and local health executive councils

throughout the country and, in the background the protectionsocieties. During each of the last three years the number ofdoctors and dentists fined and the amount of the fines had been:86 doctors and dentists, E3941; 81 doctors and dentists, E3978;120 doctors and dentists £3914. The number of guilty doctorsand dentists appeared to be going up and the average fine, oramount of pay withheld, going down. Was the degree of guiltgetting less, or were executive councils getting more lenient ?How many of the guilty men appealed to the Minister againstdecisions of the executive councils, and how often did theMinister increase or reduce the fines; how often did theMinister refer really bad cases to the General Medical Councilfor further disciplinary action.

As to publishing the names, Mr. Lipton said, the Ministertook the view that there was a contract between the prac-titioner and the executive council to which the patient was nota party. From the point of view of the unfortunate victim ofwhat was euphemistically called a contract, this was a bit

specious. In the ordinary case of a breach of contract theaggrieved party was a party to the contract. It would help tohold the scales of justice a little more evenly balanced if thename of the guilty doctor was published, not merely as adeterrent to the guilty doctor, but also for the sake of otherpatients in the guilty doctor’s care, who were entitled to knowwhat kind of person that doctor was. It would also be fairer toother doctors in the neighbourhood who came under a cloud ofsuspicion whenever a doctor was fined. A doctor in theNational Health Service was a public servant, doing a publicduty for which he was paid out of public funds. It was notunreasonable to suggest that the public was entitled to knowfor its own protection who was not doing his job. The Minister

said that if a doctor had broken the law, he could be prosecuted.If he had damnified any person, he could be sued for damages.In the general run of cases, these remedies were purelytheoretical, especially if one embarked on the expensive andperilous task of claiming damages in a civil court. Mr. Liptonadmitted that it might be argued that if the names were

published, the penalty might be out of all proportion to thegravity of what the practitioner had done wrong. But in hisview, the British public could make a shrewd judgment of whatwas a serious offence or merely a technical offence. The publiccould also assess at its true value the genuineness of a spitefulcrank or patient making ill-founded allegations. Non-publicationwas merely a convenient arrangement between the Minister andthe medical profession. The Sunday Pictorial had latelypublished two names and had received no threat of legalproceedings. Mr. Lipton suggested that if legal proceedingsfor publication could have been instituted, the doctor or dentistconcerned, with all the special machinery at his disposal, wouldhave slapped in a writ long ago.

Miss EDITH PITT, parliamentary secretary to the Ministry,pointed out chat the purpose of the service committee procedurewas simply to consider whether a practitioner had compliedwith his terms of service. It was not to decide between two

parties. The courts were available if a complainant soughtdamages. Nor was it to punish an offence. This was also forthe courts. Nor was it to determine whether a practitioner wasfit to practise. This was for the General Medical Council orother professional registration body and, in relation to theNational Health Service, for the Tribunal. The strongestreason for the non-publication of names was that the servicecommittee procedure was a matter arising out of the contract,and was in addition to, not in substitution for, the patient’sright of recourse to the courts, civil and criminal.The number of cases where remuneration was withheld had

tended to diminish in recent years as compared with the earlyyears of the service. Up to the end of 1960, details of 232 caseshad been referred by the Minister to the General MedicalCouncil, and 284 cases to the General Dental Council. Thenumber of serious cases was small. In 1960, only 370 com-plaints were investigated by medical service committees

throughout England and Wales. In only 87 of these was the’

doctor found to have failed to carry out his obligations. Of the87, only 37 were sufficiently serious to warrant a withholdingof remuneration. The procedure of reference to the National

: Health Service Tribunal was available in those few cases whereit was thought that the doctor had shown by his behaviourthat his continued participation in the general medical service