LEICESTER v WALTON [1995] NSWCA 256

LEICESTER v WALTON SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES — COURT OF APPEAL

KIRBY P 13 June 1995

[1995] NSWCA 256

MEDICINE — professional misconduct — professional discipline — order by Medical Tribunal that practitioner be suspended for excessive prescription of benzodiazepines — appeal to Court of Appeal — application for stay of Tribunal's orders — held: (1) In providing a stay, the Court was obliged to treat as paramount the protection of the public; (2) The Court is also obliged to protect the utility of the appeal which has been provided by Parliament; (3) Stay granted upon conditions imposed by the Tribunal but omitting (a) suspension; and (b) confining practice to that of employee which would require sale of present practice in advance of the appeal; (4) Hearing expedited.

Kirby P. Before the Court is an application for a stay of the operation of orders of the Medical Tribunal (the Tribunal) in respect of Dr Robert Duncan Barnaby Leicester (the medical practitioner). The Tribunal, on 17 May 1995, made orders, in effect, suspending the medical practitioner from practising for a period of six months, imposing upon him certain conditions designed to regulate his practice in respect of the prescription of certain drugs of addiction and ordering him to pay costs.

The medical practitioner appeals to this Court, as he is entitled to do. The appeal is not against the determination in its substance. It is against the orders which the Tribunal made. Those orders, as is frequently said, are not for the punishment of the medical practitioner, but for the protection of the public. I keep that purpose in mind as the paramount consideration in approaching this application for a stay.

The appeal has not yet been listed for hearing. Obviously, in the interests of the medical practitioner and of the public, the hearing should beexpedited. In due course I will propose a degree of expedition. The question arises as to what should happen in the interim?