The Supreme Court held that section 13(1) of the Inquiries Act 2005 allows a minister to suspend a public inquiry only if it appears necessary to do so in order to let another investigation finish or related civil or criminal proceedings be determined, and only for the period that appears necessary. JR222, a former nurse at Muckamore Abbey Hospital who faced pending criminal charges, failed in her challenge to the Minister of Health’s refusal to suspend the inquiry into alleged patient abuse until her trial ended.
Muckamore Abbey Hospital cared for vulnerable adults with severe learning disabilities, mental-health needs and challenging behaviour. Concerns about alleged abuse by staff prompted independent reviews, a large police investigation and criminal charges. JR222, a former staff nurse, and seven others were committed for trial on offences said to have occurred between April and June 2017. That trial remained pending, and further files were still under consideration.
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The statutory inquiry was established to examine alleged abuse at Muckamore Abbey Hospital, its causes and how recurrence could be prevented. Its remit was wider than the pending criminal prosecution. Arrangements between the inquiry, police and prosecutors restricted identification and disclosure. The Director of Public Prosecutions also gave an undertaking about the use of evidence prepared for the inquiry.
The request for suspension
JR222 asked the Minister to suspend the inquiry under section 13(1)(b) until the criminal proceedings against her were determined, relying on her right to a fair trial. The Minister refused. He acted on advice that he could suspend only where it was necessary to allow criminal proceedings to be completed, and he concluded that the existing safeguards made suspension unnecessary. Those refusals were the decisions under challenge. Other grounds, including an alleged breach of article 6, were rejected in the High Court and were not pursued in the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court.
What section 13(1) requires
Section 13(1) provides that the Minister may suspend an inquiry “for such period as appears to him to be necessary” to allow either the completion of another investigation relating to the inquiry’s subject matter or the determination of civil or criminal proceedings arising out of those matters. JR222 argued that “necessary” limits only the length of a suspension. On that view the Minister could first decide to suspend for one of the stated purposes without applying a test of necessity, and only then fix the period that appeared necessary. The Minister argued that necessity governs the decision to suspend itself: he may suspend only if it appears necessary to do so for one of those purposes, and only for the period that appears necessary.
Colton J and the Court of Appeal both read the subsection as posing a single question, so that any suspension must appear necessary before it can be imposed. Lord Stephens, with whom Lord Lloyd-Jones, Lord Burrows, Lord Richards and Lady Simler agreed, reached the same conclusion.
The Supreme Court’s reasons
The words of section 13(1), read as a whole, naturally require one coherent decision to which necessity applies. That reading was confirmed by a statement in the legislative debates. Lord Evans of Temple Guiting, a promoter of the Bill, said that the clause allowed a minister to suspend an inquiry only when it was necessary to allow a related investigation to be completed or civil or criminal proceedings to be determined. The conditions for using such a statement were met: the text was ambiguous, the speaker was a promoter, and the statement was clear on the precise point.
The purpose of an inquiry is to address public concern by finding out what happened and, where appropriate, making recommendations. Suspending an inquiry only when necessary serves that purpose. JR222’s reading would delay the inquiry’s work, including protection of other vulnerable patients, even where delay was not required for the criminal proceedings. It would also be illogical to impose a stricter test of necessity only on the secondary question of duration, and unworkable to treat the period as the only matter governed by necessity when that period ordinarily depends on proceedings outside the minister’s control.
The Explanatory Notes, which speak of it being necessary to halt an inquiry temporarily, pointed the same way. The absence of a necessity test for bringing an inquiry to an end under section 14 did not help JR222: ending an inquiry and suspending one arise in different contexts, and a higher threshold for suspension is appropriate while a public interest in the inquiry continues. Nor did the duty to give reasons in section 13(5) remove the necessity test; the reasons should address why suspension was necessary. A textbook assertion to the same effect added nothing, because it contained no reasoning.
The Minister had therefore applied the correct test when he refused to suspend.
Verdict: The Supreme Court unanimously dismissed JR222’s appeal. Necessity governed both whether to suspend the inquiry for a statutory purpose and how long any suspension should last. The Minister had applied the correct test. The other challenges, including the fair-trial ground, were not before the Supreme Court.
Source: In the matter of an application by JR222 for Judicial Review (Northern Ireland) [2024] UKSC 35
