The Rules of the Supreme Court (Northern Ireland) (Revision) 1980

Appointment of next friend or guardian ad litem

3.—(1) Except as provided by paragraph (3) or (4) or by rule 4, an order appointing a person next friend or guardian ad litem of a person under disability is not necessary.

(2) Where a person is authorised under the Lunacy Regulation (Ireland) Act 1871(1) to conduct legal proceedings in the name of a patient or on his behalf, that person shall be entitled to be next friend or guardian ad litem, as the cast, may be, of the patient in any proceedings to which his authority extends unless, in a case to which paragraph (3) or (4) or rule 4 applies, some other person is appointed by the Court under that paragraph or rule to be next friend or guardian ad litem, as the case may be; of the patient in those proceedings.

(3) Where a person has been or is next friend or guardian ad litem of a person under disability in any proceedings, no other person shall be entitled to act as such friend or guardian, as the case may be, of the person under disability in those proceedings unless the Court makes an order appointing him such friend or guardian in substitution for the person previously acting in that capacity.

(4) Where, after any proceedings have been begun, a party to the proceedings becomes a patient, an application must be made to the Court for the appointment of a person to be next friend or guardian ad litem, as the case may be, of that party.

(5) Except where the next friend or guardian ad litem, as the case may be, of a person under disability has been appointed by the Court—

(a) the name of any person shall not be used in a cause or matter as next friend of a person under disability,

(b) an appearance shall not be entered in a cause or matter for a person under disability, and

(c) a person under disability shall not be entitled to appear by his guardian ad litem on the hearing of a petition, summons or motion which, or notice of which, has been served on him,

unless and until the documents listed in paragraph (6) have been filed in the appropriate office.

(6) The documents referred to in paragraph (5) are the following—

(a) a written consent to be next friend or guardian ad litem, as the case may be, of the person under disability in the cause or matter in question given by the person proposing to be such friend or guardian;

(b) where the person proposing to be such friend or guardian of the person under disability, being a patient, is authorised to conduct the proceedings in the cause or matter in question in the name of the patient or on his behalf, an office copy, sealed with the official seal of the Office of Care and Protection, of the order or other authorisation made or given under the Lunacy Regulation (Ireland) Act 1871 by virtue of which he is so authorised; and

(c) except where the person proposing to be such friend or guardian of the person under disability, being a patient, is authorised as mentioned in sub-paragraph (b), a certificate made by the solicitor for the person under disability certifying—

(i) that he knows or believes, as the case may be, that the person to whom the certificate relates is a minor or a patient, giving (in the case of a patient) the grounds of his knowledge or belief; and

(ii) where the person under disability is a patient, that there is no person authorised as aforesaid; and

(iii) except where the person named in the certificate as next friend or guardian ad litem, as the case may be, is the Official Solicitor, that the person so named has no interest in the cause or matter in question adverse to that of the person under disability.

(1)

1871 c. 22