Cayman’s biggest healthcare provider was on Thursday refused ‘interested party’ status in a human rights case involving a schoolboy quarantined for about a month during the COVID-19 crisis.
Justice Jalil Asif rejected arguments that the Health Services Authority needed to be present during the proceedings to give a full picture of the reasoning behind the decisions that led to a then 8-year-old being in lockdown at the start of 2022.
Asif told the hearing, “I think that the ‘interests of justice’ test is not met and they do not require that that Health Services Authority is granted interested party status.”
He also ruled the three-day hearing of the case would start on 24 Jan.
Asif spoke after the HSA applied to be an interested party in the case against the Ministry of Health.
He added the health authority was concerned about “matters extraneous to the pleaded case” and that the amended petition involved policy decided by the Ministry of Health and Wellness, not its implementation by the HSA.
Asif said the case was about the bill of rights and whether the boy’s rights had been infringed by the long quarantine.
He added, “It’s not apparent to me that will require, or that the court will make pronouncements on, broader aspects of the pandemic response.”
He said, “There is no potential threat of a target painted on the HSA’s back as result of this claim.”
Asif also highlighted that, if needed, officials from the HSA could be called as witnesses during the proceedings.
He added that the court had a duty to administer justice as efficiently as possible and that the addition of the HSA, even though it did not intend to ask for costs, would not be “cost neutral”.
Asif said it was “inevitable” that its involvement would lengthen the time the case would take and increase costs.
He added that the HSA had successfully asked to be removed from the case, but now appeared to want “back in”.
The family at first started legal action against the attorney general, the health ministry and the HSA.
A petition was filed with the Grand Court two years ago claiming the boy was forced to isolate for COVID-19 long after he was likely to have ceased to be contagious.
The case questions the requirement for a clear PCR test as a condition of release from quarantine.
PCR tests can detect the presence of the coronavirus for up to 90 days after infection and should not have been considered a reliable measure of infectiousness, the petition claimed.
The child was released from lockdown in February 2022 after Wheeler’s law firm filed an injunction.
The family said the enforced quarantine had affected the boy’s physical and mental state, and that although government had the right to breach individual rights in a health crisis, the measures taken had to be rational and proportionate.
His mother said he had missed almost a month of school, including his sports day and multiple exams, and had also spent his birthday in effect under house arrest, despite having two clear lateral flow test results.
Anglin said she had appealed to public health authorities without success before she decided to push ahead with legal action.
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