Court of Protection judges are very experienced in dealing with fraught situations and family dispute. The stakes are high when family members disagree about the care or finances of a relative who lacks capacity to make their own decisions, and there are likely to be different perspectives on who is being most loving, or reasonable or responsible, who started what, or who is to blame for the current situation.
Tag Archives: Litigant In Person
Our ordinary story ….and how it became an unbelievable family experience of the Court of Protection
By Amanda Hill, 9 April 2025 (Amanda previously wrote a blog about her experience in March 2023. She had to write that under a pseudonym, Anna. This is what she wrote at the time: https://openjusticecourtofprotection.org/2023/03/17/deprived-of-her-liberty-my-experience-of-the-court-procedure-for-my-mum/) Last weekend I read through the 300-page court bundle of documents associated with my mum’s Court of Protection (COP) caseContinue reading “Our ordinary story ….and how it became an unbelievable family experience of the Court of Protection”
“Substantial disagreement” about whether P should return home
By Daniel Clark, 6 May 2024 Mrs F has a diagnosis of schizophrenia, and has been detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 on a number of occasions. She is currently residing in a mental health hospital. She is medically fit for discharge and subject to a standard authorisation under the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards. TheContinue reading ““Substantial disagreement” about whether P should return home “
Counselling and support needed for family members in the Court of Protection
By “Hope”, 13 December 2023 Although I’m involved in a Court of Protection hearing myself, as a Litigant in Person, this was the first COP hearing I’ve observed involving another family. The hearing was “Public with reporting restrictions” and could be watched either in person or (as I did) via a cloud video platform. BothContinue reading “Counselling and support needed for family members in the Court of Protection”
Disadvantaged litigants in person and a long search for a placement
By Celia Kitzinger, 14th April 2023 This very short hearing (just half an hour) interested me for two reasons. First, it tells yet another story indicative of the horrendous pressures on social care in England, with suitable placements hard to come by. Second, it raised for me some worries about the way the judge treated the parents,Continue reading “Disadvantaged litigants in person and a long search for a placement”
A short hearing and a failure to agree
Learning from the experiences of Litigants in Person and the difficulties they have navigating the legal system, in personal and emotive circumstances, is vital to supporting future Litigants in Person, particularly in light of reduced legal aid funding.
Fairness in court for a Litigant in Person
There’s an application for an injunction against P’s wife ordering her to move out of his house in two weeks’ time. This is because P would like to move back home (he’s currently in residential care) but she is alleged to have abused him.
Eight Litigants in Person
My sense, for this family, was that they had not had the opportunity to have a conversation with one another about their various grievances – and they seemed to have an appetite to do so, or at least to air them and have them heard. The court setting is not able to facilitate this in the way they might have needed emotionally, yet I thought DJ McIlwaine offered a textbook illustration of how to, sensitively yet determinedly, conduct a hearing with LIPs – quite a feat with so many LIPs to boot!
Navigating a family feud on P’s death-bed
By Celia Kitzinger, 9th November 2021 She’s in her eighties, with significant cognitive decline, and delirium secondary to numerous infections and “in all likelihood in the last weeks of her life,” said the judge. She lacks capacity to make her own decisions about who she has contact with. One of her daughters, Ann[1], and Ann’s daughter (P’sContinue reading “Navigating a family feud on P’s death-bed”
Best interests decisions when P’s views and wishes cannot be determined
The issue at this hearing was (still) whether NW should remain in Dover House, which is what the CCG (who fund her care) argued, supported by the local authority, or whether she should return home, which is what her mother wants.
Promoting Open Justice in the Court of Protection 