Psychologist loses stay of inquiry bid

AN APPLICATION by psychologist Christie Els for a permanent stay of inquiry proceedings against her by the Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA) has been dismissed by a Western Cape High Court judge.

The case goes back to mid-2013 when Els was appointed as a facilitator by the Cape Town Children’s Court in a dispute about care and contact between the parents of a young boy.

That case ended when the Children’s Court ordered in February 2015 that the child would remain in the primary care of his father, with rights of reasonable contact reserved to the mother.

However the matter did not end there. In December 2013 two people, who were not involved in the case before the Children’s Court, but who Els alleged in court papers were friends of the child’s mother, had made an urgent application seeking an interim interdict postponing an inquiry by the HPCSA into Els’ professional conduct.

A preliminary committee of the HPCSA determined that Els had acted unprofessionally. As her conduct was considered only a minor transgression she was invited to pay an admission of guilt fine of R50 000 per complaint.

Els rejected the preliminary committee’s findings, and declined to pay the fine which meant that the registrar of the HPCSA had to convene a hearing for the trial of the complaints.

The case against Els at the HPCSA was founded on an opinion obtained by the board of her professional body from Professor Salome Human-Vogel of the University of Pretoria. However, along the way Appendix A to Professor Vogel’s report went missing and this became an issue during the course of Vogel’s evidence before the HPCSA.

After several delays including the Covid-19 lockdown the inquiry finally got underway in October las year .

Unsatisfied after the Appendix A issue, Els turned to the high court where the central pillar of her case for a permanent stay was the prejudice she said she would suffer if the inquiry was permitted to run its course.

But Judge Ashley Binns-Ward ruled: “The evidence given by Els… has not persuaded me she is likely to be able to persuade a court seized of her application for a permanent stay that the disappearance of Appendix A to Professor Vogel’s report has caused, or will occasion, her irremediable prejudice.”