Mental Capacity Report - December 2024

Welcome to the December 2024 Mental Capacity Report. Highlights this month include:

1. In the Health, Welfare and Deprivation of Liberty Report: the Court of Appeal grapples again with sexual capacity, and important reminders of best interests as good governance and operating in an imperfect world;
2. In the Property and Affairs Report: Simon Edwards retires, and deputyship updates;
3. In the Practice and Procedure Report: flight risk, and a coercive control dilemma regarding a lasting power of attorney;
4. In the Mental Health Matters Report: a Mental Health Bill update, detainability and the courts, and Right Care, Right Person under scrutiny;
5. In the Wider Context Report: Assisted dying / assisted suicide developments, capacity and surrogacy and two important Strasbourg cases;
6. In the Scotland Report: Kirsty Mcgrath retires, and a blank space for developments regarding legislative reform in Scotland.

There is one plug this month, for a free digital trial of the newly relaunched Court of Protection Law Reports (now published by Butterworths).  For a walkthrough of one of the reports, see here.

You can find our past issues, our case summaries, and more on our dedicated sub-site here, where you can also sign up to the Mental Capacity Report.

Her fellow editors know that you will join us in congratulating Arianna on her recent appointment as a Recorder: she will sit in Family cases on the North Eastern circuit (alongside sitting as a fee-paid First-Tier Tribunal judge, (Mental Health) and fee-paid Court of Protection judge).

As is now standard, there will be no January report (but Alex will give essential updates on his website); we hope that at least some of you will get something of a break over the December period.

Click below to download the Screen-friendly version of the Report or the Print-friendly version of the Report.