Conduct committee chairman biased – Basson
FORMERchemical and biological warfare expert Dr Wouter Basson has accused the chairman of the professional conduct committee, which has to decide his fate, of being biased against him even before his disciplinary hearing began.
Jaap Cilliers SC, for Basson, applied yesterday for the recusal of committee chairman, Professor Jannie Hugo, and committee member, Prof Eddie Mahlanga.
He argued there was a clear perception of bias on Hugo’s part because he never disclosed he was a member of, or had an association with, organisations that signed a petition agitating for Basson’s removal from the medical roll and which was handed in as evidence in aggravation against Basson.
Cilliers said Hugo also never disassociated himself from the stance of the organisations that Basson should be struck from.
Hugo’s refusal to disclose whether he was a member of any of the organisations was “bizarre” and his insistence on continuing with the hearing in Basson’s absence was a clear indication of bias.
Cilliers accused the committee of leaning towards the side of the complainants against Basson from the start, which was why the complainants were granted more than a year “to search the world” for an expert willing to support their stance that Basson had acted unethically.
When Basson, however, asked for a postponement to investigate Hugo’s involvement in organisations and to approach the high court, the committee had insisted the hearing should continue in his absence.
“That was an absolute travesty of justice and a disregard of all rules pertaining to a fair trial,” he said. The proceedings were a “Laurel and Hardy show”.
Cilliers said the committee’s stance that any medical doctor who joined the defence force in the 1980s was unethical and unprofessional, clearly indicated it had been biased against Basson from the start.
The Health Professions Council found Basson guilty in December 2013 of unprofessional conduct as a medical doctor when he headed the apartheid government’s chemical and biological warfare programme between 1981 and 1992.
The committee found Basson had acted unethically when he co-ordinated the largescale production of illegal psychoactive drugs, equipped mortars with tear gas, provided military operatives with disorientating substances to facilitate illegal cross-border kidnappings, made cyanide capsules available to South African soldiers for suicide purposes, and violated the medical ethical principle of “first do no harm”.
The high court ruled in January that Basson was entitled to lodge a recusal application against the committee members, and interdicted the committee from continuing in Basson’s absence. – Sapa