Response From the Court of Protection.

I've finally read through the response I received from the Court of Protection (CoP) yesterday (14/4) and it's not so much complicated as written out in triplicate. I should start by explaining why this is the absolute last thing I wanted to be getting involved in during the Copenhagen COP-15 Summit. All the forms relating to the CoP carry the prefix COP. Therefore you have a COP-1 form, a COP-2 form etc. You even have a COP-15 form.

The forms that are relevant to me are the COP-7 form for raising a objection within this infamous five week time limit and the COP-1 form for raising an objection outside of the five week time limit. All the correspondence I received from the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) informed me that I needed to fill out the COP-7 form so this is what I did. It was only after I'd filled it out, made copies and was about to file it that I realised that I probably needed to fill out a COP-1 form instead but I decided to file the COP-7 form anyway. After all the worst that would happen is that the CoP would send it back and I would have to re-file using the COP-1 form. As the two forms are almost identical and this five week time limit is central to the argument the CoP have obviously kindly used their discretion and allowed the submission of the COP-7 form. In doing so they've also managed to sidestep a potentially nasty argument over the controversial changes being made to the Legal Aid system that were announced in 2009's Pre-Budget Report under the heading of "efficiency savings."

What happens now is that I have to separately serve both my father and grandmother with copies of the COP-7 form and a COP-20 form that will allow them to apply to join the proceedings. Once that's done I need to send the CoP two COP-5 forms acknowledging that I've served both my father and grandmother. This stage is going to be entertaining at best and something I will need to think carefully about. However it must be done within 21 days of the date the CoP issued the papers (April 9th). That means that this is probably going to kick off on or around Friday April 30th.

Assuming we all live through that stage the CoP then has 21 weeks from April 30th to consider the case, decide if there needs to be an oral hearing and make a ruling. At the risk of prejudicing the case and antagonising a judge I think this should be a mere formality. As the objection has been made on procedural grounds neither my father or grandmother actually have any scope to challenge the submission so there shouldn't be a need for an oral hearing. At the paper hearing the judge will only have to consider a simple logic 1 or logic 0 or yes/no question as to whether December 11th 2009 occurred after March 27th 2010 meaning that the correct procedure was followed or whether it occurred before meaning that proper procedure was not followed. Obviously it is not my place to prejudge the court but I think it is unlikely that it will be able to find in anything other then my favour.