Dr Chu Kin Wah v. The Medical Council of Hong Kong

On 25 August 2026, the Court of Final Appeal Appeal Committee (Ribeiro PJ, Lam PJ and Tang NPJ) declined to grant Dr Chu Kin Wah leave to appeal from CACV 204/2024 against the Medical Council of Hong Kong. Mr Anthony Neoh SC, with Mr Andrew Mak, Ms Barbara Wong and Mr Jiang Zixin (instructed by Paul CK Tang & Chiu), acted for the applicant. Reasons were handed down on 1 September 2026.

Dr Chu had been found guilty by the Medical Council's Inquiry Panel of two counts of professional misconduct and ordered removed from the register of medical practitioners for 3 months and 6 months respectively. His appeal to the Court of Appeal was dismissed on 12 January 2026 ([2026] 2 HKLRD 143), and that court refused leave to appeal to the CFA on 25 March 2026 ([2026] HKCA 522). He then formulated four questions of law said to be of great general or public importance, covering (1) the relevance and weight of contemporaneous clinical records of another treating doctor under the Bolam test, (2) procedural fairness and the Panel's duty to summon witnesses, (3) whether the Secretary's opening submissions confined the scope of the prosecution case, and (4) the proper appellate approach to sanctions under section 26 of the Medical Registration Ordinance (Cap. 161).

The Court held that: (1) the relevant principles of law were not in dispute; the applicant's real complaint was about how those principles had been applied (§3); (2) on Questions 1 and 2, the Panel had in fact taken the other doctors' evidence into account and was entitled to place whatever weight on it in light of the other evidence, and the Court of Appeal was correct that a single other doctor's conduct, where the Council could not assess its correctness, could not constitute a responsible body of medical opinion supporting the applicant's management (§§4-6, citing [2026] 2 HKLRD 143 at [84]); (3) the Panel had no duty on its own motion to summon those doctors where the applicant was legally represented and had adduced expert evidence that already addressed the other doctors' management (§8); (4) on Question 3, the Court of Appeal correctly concluded that the Secretary had not confined the prosecution in the manner suggested, and no procedural unfairness arose (§9); and (5) on Question 4, Sastry v General Medical Council [2021] 1 WLR 5029 did not establish a new approach, the Ghosh approach had been followed in Hong Kong since Lau Koon Leung v Medical Council of Hong Kong [2006] 3 HKLRD 225 and confirmed in Solicitor (24/07) v Law Society of Hong Kong (2008) 11 HKCFAR 117, and the Court of Appeal had not abrogated its independent appellate role (§§11-13).

Leave was refused.

For practitioners advising doctors facing MCHK disciplinary proceedings, the practical implications are these: a single contemporaneous treating doctor's conduct will not, without more, be treated as evidence of a responsible body of medical opinion under Bolam; an Inquiry Panel will not be expected to summon defence witnesses on its own motion where the practitioner is represented and has put in expert evidence addressing the same material; and the Ghosh standard of appellate review for professional sanctions remains settled in Hong Kong, with deference to the tribunal's expertise on technical or clinical matters but independent judgment retained on the question of whether the sanction is appropriate.