A Cape Town judge failed to be persuaded that he should halt an inquiry – for alleged unprofessional conduct – against a clinical psychologist accused of fabricating a court-sanctioned report on the well-being of a minor child.
Two complaints relating to her professional conduct in October 2023 prompted the the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) to initiate action against Toni Raphael. The first was by a client alleging she had prepared a report for court proceedings related to the well-being of their child – in which she “claimed that she had interviewed people, including experts, when in fact she had not done so” – and the second complaint from one of the people whom the applicant “claimed to have consulted when she had not done so”.
The report allegedly misled the High Court, according to the HPCSA’s professional conduct committee (PCC), which then summoned the psychologist to an inquiry, accusing her of “unprofessional conduct of fraud”.
TimesLIVE reports that Raphael brought a discharge application after two witnesses had testified, but the committee dismissed her appeal in December.
She later requested the postponement of the inquiry pending the outcome of the review application that she intended to launch, igniting a series of legal processes.
The psychologist turned to the Western Cape High Court (High Court), seeking an urgent interdict to halt the inquiry, pending the outcome of a second application to review the PCC's refusal to grant her a discharge.
The PCC “refused the application for discharge because of its view that there is a prima facie case”.
Raphael argued the discharge refusal had violated her right to a fair administrative process and that the PCC failed to consider evidence and “took irrelevant considerations into account”.
However, the HPCSA opposed the application, saying her “prospects of success in the review application”, were “poor because the court intervention in unconcluded proceedings is not permissible in the absence of exceptional circumstances”.
It added that she had “not pleaded any exceptional circumstances”.
“This is because a misdirection as to the applicable test, the failure to consider evidence as well as taking irrelevant factors into account are all ordinary grounds of review that do not amount to exceptional circumstances,” reads the judgment, handed down in May.
Judge Lister Nuku said Raphael’s “prospects of success in the review are poor but that is not the only consideration”.
“When dealing with irreparable harm and the balance of convenience, (Raphael) proceeds from the same mistaken premise as she does in respect of her prima facie right,” the judgment reads.
“This …starts with her argument that there is no evidence upon which she may be found guilty unless she gives self-incriminating evidence. This, however, is her opinion and not that of the PCC. The PCC, as stated already refused the application for a discharge on the basis there is a prima facie case.
“I am not satisfied that (she) has satisfied the requirements for an interim interdict. The result is that the applications must be dismissed with costs.”
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