26 January 2007
The Department for Constitutional Affairs has launched a legal battle to force private care homes to comply with the 1998 Human Rights Act.
A legal win for the DCA could prevent private care providers from closing homes or beds, as this could be construed as contrary to section 8 of the Act, which grants a right to 'respect for private and family life'.
The case opened at the Court of Appeal on January 24 and will involve a judicial review of a landmark 2002 case. Then, a court found that residents of a home ran by the Leonard Cheshire Foundation could not use the HRA to fight its closure, as the foundation was not a public body and therefore not bound by the Act.
A spokesman for the DCA told Public Finance: 'The government believes that a person should benefit from the same high standard of human rights protection regardless of whether the care is supplied in a local authority or private care home. It will argue robustly in the Court of Appeal that a private home caring for local authority residents is already subject to the Human Rights Act.
'This was the government's original intention, and it is disappointed with earlier court decisions that adversely affect some of the most vulnerable members of our society.'
The test case was originally brought by residents of care homes run by the London Borough of Havering. They argued that the council's plan to outsource their homes to the private sector was illegal as it would mean they would no longer enjoy the protection of the HRA.
Last year a court ruled that this argument had 'no prospect of success'. But in November the Court of Appeal found that the contrary argument put by the council and DCA — that private homes should already be subject to the Act as they carried out public policy functions — should be urgently tested, involving a review of the 2002 decision.
PFjan2007
