Rejection of doctor case bias

A TRIBUNAL chairwoman has declined to disqualify herself from a professional misconduct case involving a Hobart GP.

Stuart Lynch has been accused of transgressing professional boundaries with two of his patients from about 2013 to 2019 through inappropriate physical touching and/or making inappropriate comments.

The Medical Board of Australia also alleges he breached conditions on his registration between August and October 2019, or on its gender-based restriction protocol at the time.

Hearings over the matter began last week in Hobart.

During the hearings, Bruce McTaggart SC – acting for Dr Lynch – argued Tasmanian Health Practitioners Tribunal chairwoman Alison Clues had tried to “tar” the doctor with the conduct of his lawyers.

Ms Clues stood the matter down, saying no further evidence could be called until she dealt with an application to recuse or disqualify herself from the case amid allegations of “actual bias or an apprehension of bias”.

In her newly published decision, she responded to each of Mr McTaggart’s grounds that she was not able to “bring a fair and impartial mind to (her) statutory task”.

Ms Clues said that she had simply overruled an objection in the first instance, had asked a question to clarify an answer in the second, and accurately described circumstances in the third.

She disagreed with suggestions she preferred the complainant’s evidence in favour of the doctor’s lawyers.

“Nothing has been advanced on behalf of the respondent to establish that I would make a determination in this matter without regard to the evidence,” Ms Clues said.

“The bare assertion that the (doctor) has a reasonable apprehension that I will not be able to bring a fair and impartial mind to my statutory task is insufficient. The application to recuse or disqualify myself is dismissed.”

The hearing will resume at a later date.