Four recent cases in the Court of Protection establish that the responsibility to give the Court enough resources to appoint accredited representatives for those without capacity falls on the State.
Charles invited the Ministry of Justice and Department of Health to identify a suitable person ‘who is ready, willing and able’ to accept immediate appointment as a rule 3A representative or identify an alternative procedure that is ‘actually’ available to the court to meet minimum procedural requirements.Future similar cases have been adjourned until a ‘practically available procedure’ is found.Charles acknowledged that his order would ‘create a backlog comprising a very large number of stayed cases’.‘Plainly this is unfortunate but it will identify the extent of the problem and why the [court] and the applicant authorities have not been able to progress the applications for welfare orders to authorise P’s deprivation of liberty,’ he said
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