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NPA reluctant to open case against Health Professions Council

The Cape Town office of the National Prosecutions Authority (NPA), aka the director of public prosecutions, is reluctant to open a corruption case against the Health Professions Council (HPCSA) and medical committee member Prof. Elmin Steyn after last month directing me to lay a charge with the police.

In this blog (see here and here) I relate how this came about. In May the HPCSA's Third Committee of Preliminary Inquiry cleared six doctors and their superiors implicated in my mother's death in 2017 at Groote Schuur Hospital (GSH) and for covering it up. The decision was irrational: they ignored the law and their own precedent for similar cases, and the inquiry was procedurally flawed having violated inquiry regulations. There was proven bias and conflict of interest.

Committee member Steyn[1] of Stellenbosch University and Tygerberg Hospital, had a prior and ongoing personal-professional relationship with one of the accused, Prof. Andrew Nicol of UCT and GSH.

On August 28 I attempted to lay charges under the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act of 2004 at the local police station but the head of detectives declined to accept it. I wrote to the NPA asking to whom I must deliver my affidavit. They replied they would attend to it, but later when pressed, said if I still intend to (I hadn't indicated otherwise and confirmed I would), must do it at the SA Police Service (SAPS). This I did at Woodstock Police Station on Monday October 28.

The officer at the front desk and detective he sent me to prevaricated. The detective was familiar with my mom's case, though. I told him it was a mess. In the end he allowed it after I insisted and complained that SAPS were refusing to open a case.

While the HPCSA is in Pretoria, the deemed location of the alleged offences, Steyn is Cape Town-based and Nicol, not named as a respondent but mentioned due to his connection to her, is based at GSH. So the case comes full circle to where it started, the hospital being in Woodstock's jurisdiction.

On Tuesday I received a message to call the detectives. There was no answer when I called. The following day I again missed their phone call but got hold of one yesterday morning.

He said they had spoken to the NPA's prosecutor (Adv. N Ajam et al) asking if the case must be combined with the one opened after my mother's death because that was the original incident. (The latter case about which I've frequently requested the NPA and Cape Town Inquest Magistrate Court for information has not been closed.) There was no response from them and would try to get an appointment with her next week. I got the impression the NPA was dragging their feet.

I gave him the background to the saga which he wasn't aware of.  He advised me to hire a lawyer to push the case with the NPA and file a civil claim, with whom he didn't say, to get "closure". This is (partly) because the NPA are unresponsive to their requests for instruction. It's extraordinary: a policeman acknowledging the ineffectiveness or collapse of the criminal justice system. Citizens must approach the courts on their own account.

This is what lobby group AfriForum is doing - initiate and threaten to initiate private prosecutions because the NPA in certain cases refuse to particularly when it concerns politically connected people and politicians. In one case - Jacob Zuma's son Duduzane Zuma - the NPA reversed their decision not to prosecute (he was eventually acquitted). Zuma Sr is finally being prosecuted after the DA forced their hand. Recently the NPA withdrew charges against alleged sex pest Western Cape ANC disgraced politician Marius Fransman.

Cape Town NPA are tardy or reluctant to instruct the police but in 2017 freely and quickly gave then premier Helen Zille's legal representative - Western Cape government employees, the above doctors and administrators, were the accused - confidential information about an ongoing investigation. It's likely they're waiting on (political) instruction from higher up given that the HPCSA is a partner in the Health Sector Anti-Corruption Forum Ramaphosa launched on October 1.

The NPA are still chronically dysfunctional despite new NPA head Shamila Bathohi's and President Cyril Ramaphosa's  empty gestures. I wonder how many among their officers are as corrupt as the people they meant to prosecute and if that's the reason for their reluctance.

The NPA, and that includes its Cape Town officers, is corrupt as defined under "to act" (section 4(2)) in the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act of 2004.

Postscript: I phoned and emailed Woodstock detectives to ask for progress and for the case number but there was response. I emailed the office of the police provincial commissioner complaining but there was no response either (added 26/12/2019).

Footnotes

[1] Steyn and UCT trauma professor Andrew Nicol, indirectly implicated and a respondent to our dismissed criminal and professional charges, co-edited the Oxford University Press' Handbook of Trauma for Southern Africa. Ironically, OUP is a member of the Ethics Institute of South Africa whose objectives are to "build an ethically responsible society". (Added 7/01/2020.

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