Re G (Court of Protection: Injunction) [2022] EWCA Civ 1312

Court of Appeal judgment concerning the legal test to be applied by the Court of Protection when considering an injunction.

This appeal concerned injunctions placed on the father, mother and grandmother preventing them from sharing the story of G, the P in this case, as part of a crowdfunding campaign. Hayden J had been worried the real reason for the campaign was the family’s disagreement with the care plans for G and that lifting the restrictions could jeopardise those arrangements. The background can be read in an earlier judgment here.

In this judgment Baker LJ analyses what the just and convenient test for making an injunction under s37 of the Senior Courts Act 1981 requires. He concludes that the dicta set out by Leggatt LJ in Broad Idea represents the law. Following that guidance, he decides that Hayden J had satisfied the requirements and that G had had an interest that merited protection and that there was a legal or equitable principle that justified an injunction. He also rejected grounds of app​eal arguing the judge did not have powers under s16(5) of the MCA 2005. He then proceeds to dismiss the appeals of G’s parents but he allowed the appeal of the grandmother as she had not been properly served: she was not formally joined as a respondent until the first day of the hearing, she was not represented and attended remotely on a mobile phone from G’s bedside in the hospital. The matter was remitted to The President of the Family Division for allocation to another judge.

Read the judgment on the National Archives