The General Medical Council (Constitution of Fitness to Practise Committees) Rules Order of Council 1996

GENERAL

Time of election and tenure of office

8.—(1) Unless the Council in special circumstances shall otherwise direct, the elections of persons to the fitness to practice Committees shall be conducted by post during the four months before the first Meeting of the Council held on or after 1st November in each year and the results of those elections shall be announced at that Meeting.

(2) Subject to paragraph (3), members elected to the fitness to practice Committees in accordance with paragraph (1) shall hold office for the next subsequent calendar year.

(3) Persons elected to the fitness to practice Committees in accordance with paragraph (1) to hold office in a general election year shall hold office from 1st January to 31st October in that year; and persons elected to those Committees in a general election year shall hold office from the date of the first meeting of the Council on or after 1st November in that year until the end of the following calendar year.

(4) Members of each Committee shall be eligible for re-election.

Manner of elections

9.  The members of each Committee who are to be elected by the Council shall be elected by a single transferable vote and every member of the Council may vote in the election for each category of member to be elected to the fitness to practice Committee in question.

Order in which election results to be determined

10.   At the annual elections of the Committees the results of the election of the Committees shall be determined in the following order: first the Preliminary Proceedings Committee, followed by the Health Committee, the Assessment Referral Committee, the Committee on professional performance, and lastly the Professional Conduct Committee.

Eligibility for membership

11.—(1) No member may be elected to more than one of the Committees at any one time.

(2) The President, if he so chooses, may sit concurrently on the Professional Conduct Committee and on the Committee on Professional Performance and on the Health Committee.

Disqualification from adjudication

12.  Without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing rule, no member of the Professional Conduct Committee or of the Committee on Professional Performance or of the Health Committee may sit as such on the hearing of any case if he has previously sat as a member of any of the other fitness to practice Committees in relation to that case, or has adjudicated on it elsewhere in any other capacity.

Filling of vacancies

13.—(1) If any member who has been elected to any of the Committees vacates office otherwise than by the expiry of his term of office, the vacancy shall be filled by election by the Council in the same manner as the original election and the member so elected shall hold office until the end of the term of office of the member in whose place he was elected.

(2) If at any time there are insufficient elected, appointed or lay members available to sit on the fitness to practice committees then the President may temporarily appoint to any of them any member who would not be disqualified from adjudication under rule 12 of these Rules, but so that a vacancy on a committee for a medical member may only be filled by another medical member, and a vacancy for a lay member may only be filled by another lay member.

Cessation of Membership

14.  Notwithstanding anything in these Rules a member of any of the Committees shall, upon vacating office as a member of the Council, also cease to be a member of the Committee except that for the purposes of this rule a member of the Council shall not be deemed to have vacated office as a member of the Council if he has again been elected, appointed or nominated to be a member thereof not later than the date of his vacating office.

Validity of Proceedings

15.  The validity of any proceedings of any of the Committees shall not be affected by any vacancy among the members of the Committees or by any defect in the election or appointment of a member thereof.

Revocation

16.—(1) The rules specified in Schedule 1 are revoked to the extent specified in the third column of that Schedule as from 1st September 1996; and

(2) The rules specified in Schedule 2 are revoked to the extent specified in the third column of that Schedule as from 1st January 1997.

Given under the official seal of the General Medical Council this 25th day of July, nineteen hundred and ninety-six.