Dr Bawa-Garba Successful in Appeal Against Erasure

In a judgment released today, the Court of Appeal has quashed the decision of Ouseley J that Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba be struck off the medical register.  The Court of Appeal held that the Divisional Court was wrong to interfere with the decision of the original Medical Practitioners Tribunal (MPT) to suspend Dr Bawa-Garba, when it considered the case in February 2017.  That hearing had in turn followed the conclusion of Crown Court proceedings in 2015, at which Dr Bawa-Garba was found guilty of Gross Negligence Manslaughter and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, suspended for two years.

The Court of Appeal concluded that it was wrong of Ouseley J to find that erasure was the only proper sanction available to the MPT, and that its original decision to suspend Dr Bawa-Garba failed to respect the decision of the jury when it convicted her, namely that the doctor’s own failings in the case had been “truly exceptionally bad”.  It instead concluded that the MPT had conducted an “evaluative judgment” of the case as a whole, reasonably taking into account factors such as the wider context of the case, Dr Bawa-Garba’s remediation since the events in question, and that “…she is a competent and useful doctor, who represents no material danger to the public, and can provide considerable useful service to society.”

To read the full judgment and a media statement issued by the Court, click here.