The Irish Supreme Court has supported the rights of a couple who refused to allow doctors to carry out a screening test on their newborn baby.
It rejected a challenge from one of the country's health boards to the refusal of a couple to allow a phenylketonuria (PKU) screening test to be carried out on their infant son.
The court said the North Western Health Board (NWHB) was effectively seeking to have the test made compulsory. That, said Ms Justice Denham, would have "a far-reaching" effect, turning into law something which was presently only departmental policy and would also establish "a very low threshold" for court intervention in future cases involving children.
Mr Justice Hardiman, calling the case "utterly novel," said the move to perform a treatment without consent was "a trespass, a battery and a breach of constitutional rights."
The only dissent in the four-to-one majority decision came from the Chief Justice. Mr Justice Keane said constitutional provisions regarding the family did not oblige the court to allow the wishes of the parents to prevail over the best interests of the child.
All five judges agreed that the medical evidence was that the PKU test, which screens for the presence of four metabolic and one endocrine condition, is of benefit to babies. But Mr Justice Murray said while he believed the decision by the parents in this case was "manifestly unwise and disturbing," it was a decision they had the liberty to take.
The North Western Health Board had previously secured a care order in relation to another of the couple's children who was returned to the couple after the test was carried out. Mr Justice Hardiman said the application for that order was inappropriate.
A similar care order secured on the child of another couple has been successfully challenged in the courts.
A PKU screening test is administered to newborn babies in all of the republic's maternity hospitals and may also be carried out by public health nurses. The Supreme Court's decision last week, however, clearly emphasised the fundamental tenet of informed medical consent.