The HPCSA will go ahead with its second disciplinary hearing of Dr Wouter Basson (‘Dr Death’), linked to four charges dating back to the 1980s, after Gauteng High Court Acting Judge Irene de Vos rejected all four grounds for appeal, reports News24.
Three of the charges relate to his developing crowd-control substances intended to avoid lethal force, and the fourth involves Basson having provided cyanide suicide capsules to SADF operatives for use if captured.
Basson (75), who had appealed to halt the HPCSA’s proceedings against him, was the former head of Project Coast, the apartheid government’s chemical and biological weapons programme at the time.
In the judgment delivered by De Vos, the court dismissed Basson’s application for leave to appeal against an earlier ruling that refused to interdict disciplinary proceedings brought against him.
The HPCSA then brought a second set of disciplinary proceedings against Basson, involving the four charges related to conduct during the apartheid era more than 40 years ago.
The first set of proceedings was abandoned after the High Court found the investigating panel was biased, and after fresh proceedings were initiated, Basson sought an interdict on the grounds of unreasonable delay. The High Court dismissed that application earlier this year.
But Basson argued that the judge had erred in finding the charges serious, particularly by relying on a summary of evidence from medical ethics expert Professor Steven Miles, which the court had mislabelled as an affidavit.
De Vos acknowledged the mislabelling, but noted Basson himself had introduced and relied on the summaries. Even without Miles’ summary, De Vos said she had relied on Basson’s own evidence at his criminal trial. She said he could not rely on the contents of the summary for his case and then seek leave on the basis that the court ought not to have considered the contents of the summary of his case.
“…the court concludes that another court would not come to a different conclusion. In any event, the court’s reasoning was that it would reach the same conclusion, that the charges were serious, even in the absence of Professor Miles’ summaries.”
Basson argued that the apartheid era should not have been excluded from the delay calculation, which would have made the delay more than 40 years, but De Vos held that the complaints were laid 20 years ago.
She further applied precedent, which excluded the apartheid era because of the impunity the accused benefited from under that system.
Basson also argued he would suffer trial-related prejudice.
De Vos noted that the HPCSA had offered to admit expert evidence from the first proceedings to counter any prejudice, and that the disciplinary committee’s task was ultimately an interpretive one, deciding based on established, common cause facts whether Basson breached ethical duties.
De Vos also noted that some of the charges Basson now faces before the HPCSA were also brought criminally by the NPA, and that Basson was not found guilty of those charges.
While the criminal acquittal determined his criminal guilt, it did not alter the seriousness of the charges, since the same charges were brought against him in a criminal court, she added.
The application for leave to appeal was dismissed, and the judgment clears the way for the HPCSA’s second disciplinary hearing against Basson to proceed.
Basson maintains that no doctor-patient relationships were involved, no harm was caused to anyone, and the substances he developed were aimed at saving lives and preventing lethal force.
He was previously acquitted of 67 criminal charges, including murder, drug, and fraud, related to the same conduct, an acquittal the Constitutional Court did not overturn.
The HPCSA has argued that the charges, involving medical ethics around weaponising drugs and supplying cyanide, are severe enough to justify proceeding.
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HPCSA will take yet another try at a disciplinary hearing into Basson