Supreme Court release ruling explaining Alfie Evans appeal rejection

A panel of three Supreme Court justices has released a ruling explaining why Alfie's parents' latest legal bid has been blocked.

Justices said litigants had to raise an "arguable point of law of general public importance'' in order to get permission to mount a fight in the Supreme Court.

Lady Hale, Lord Kerr and Lord Wilson said the couple's proposed appeal was unarguable''.

"Mr Thomas Evans and Ms Kate James seek permission to appeal to the Supreme Court against the order of the Court of Appeal,'' said the panel's ruling.

"The court will give permission for an appeal to be brought only if it would raise an arguable point of law of general public importance."

"On 20 February 2018 Mr Justice Hayden determined Alder Hey's application by reference to his assessment of Alfie's best interests. He declared that it was no longer in his best interests for ventilation to be provided to him."

"It followed that it was not lawful for ventilation to continue to be provided to him, whether at Alder Hey or anywhere else. So the judge proceeded to declare that it was lawful and in his best interests that Alfie be extubated, that ventilatory support be withdrawn from him and that he receive only palliative care."

"The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal of the parents against the declarations made by Mr Justice Hayden and in doing so held that he had been correct to make them by reference to his assessment, which the Court of Appeal endorsed, of where Alfie's best interests lay.

Justices added: "It is wrong (say the parents) for an issue such as the present to be determined by reference only to a child's best interests. The law of England and Wales is (they say) illogical and the Supreme Court must set it right."

The first question should (according to them) be whether their proposals for Alfie's future care would cause him to be likely to suffer 'significant harm'. And they cast these arguments within a complaint that, in the enjoyment of their right to respect for their family life under article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the courts have discriminated against them.''

They said Alfie's parents wanted to be allowed to transfer him to a hospital in Rome and, possibly, a hospital in Munich.

"(Mr Justice Hayden) found the parents' proposals not to be in Alfie's best interests,'' said justices."

"He found, with obvious sadness, that they would achieve nothing."

"But he was not asked to consider whether they would cause Alfie 'significant harm' and so he made no finding to that effect."

Alfie's parents said a family court judge could not rule that a child could be taken from home and placed for adoption unless that child had suffered significant harm''."

They asked, therefore, why Alfie could be taken from them if no-one had established that they had caused him, or might cause him, significant harm.

"Here, in the panel's view, one reaches the nub of the parents' argument,'' said the justices' ruling.

"If significant harm (or its likelihood) has to be established before a child can be removed - perhaps only temporarily - from the home of his parents under a care order, why does it not need to be established before he can be removed, permanently, from them and from everything in this world, by death?"

They said the legal proceedings launched by Alder Hey bosses were quite different'' to care proceedings launched by council social services staff.

"Doctors need to know what the law requires of them,'' justices added.

"The founding rule is that it is not lawful for them (or any other medical team) to give treatment to Alfie which is not in his interests."

"A decision that, although not in his best interests, Alfie's continued ventilation can lawfully continue because (perhaps) it is not causing him significant harm would be inconsistent with the founding rule."

"We are satisfied that the current law of England and Wales is that decisions about the medical treatment of children, like those about the medical treatment of adults, are governed by what is in their best interests."

"We are also satisfied that this does not discriminate against the parents of children such as Alfie in the enjoyment of their right to respect for their family life because their situation is not comparable with that of the parents of children who are taken away from them by the state to be brought up elsewhere."

"The proposed appeal is unarguable so, notwithstanding our profound sympathy for the agonising situation in which they find themselves, we refuse permission for the parents to appeal."