Pretoria - While the Road Accident Fund (RAF) is facing many obstacles, it seems that fraudulent expert reports pertaining to some claims may be included among its woes.
A Limpopo judge had discovered that the expert reports purportedly compiled by an industrial psychologist in four cases were never done by him.
The expert testified in these matters that not only was it not his signature under the affidavits filed by the court under his name, but he never saw the patients in question.
Judge Maake Kganyago, sitting in the high court in Polokwane, who discovered the discrepancies in the signature of the expert, called him to explain the discrepancies.
The industrial psychologist denied that it was his signature, or that he had compiled the reports.
Kganyago, in his judgment, said in the Judiciary Annual Report for 2017/18 it was reported that there was a prevalence of fraudulent activities relating to court orders of both superior and magistrates’ courts. It was reported that this was a serious threat to access to justice and undermined the integrity of the judicial system and public confidence in the courts.
In this regard, Judge Kganyago said: “It seems now that the problem of fraudulent activities might have escalated to expert reports, even though this court has not determined to what extent.”
The alleged fraudulent activity came to light when four claims against the RAF were set down for hearing by the court. Their attorneys had filed the reports of a Dr Malaka, an industrial psychologist, as one of their expert witnesses.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys filed the expert affidavits duly signed and commissioned allegedly by Malaka. However, the signatures on all four expert affidavits were not similar. On the date of the hearing, counsel for the plaintiffs in all four matters could not give clarity as to whether it was Malaka who had signed the expert affidavits.
The four matters were postponed for Malaka to verify whether indeed it was his signature that appeared on the expert affidavits.
He confirmed that the reports were not compiled or signed by him.
In addressing court, counsel for the plaintiffs conceded that things were “not done properly” as the instructing attorney only picked up these discrepancies after they were raised by the court.
According to them, they were not aware that the reports were not those of Malaka.
Judge Kganyago commented that “this does not make sense at all”.
He said the plaintiffs on their own would not have known Dr Malaka.
It would be the attorney or any person delegated by the attorney who handled those matters who would make an appointment with the expert.
When the appointment was made, the attorney would be told the date, time, place and expert who his/her client was to meet. In most cases the attorney or any person delegated by the attorney would transport their client to the place of the expert.
The attorney, when wanting to file an expert affidavit, would prepare it and communicate with the expert regarding the signing and commissioning of that expert affidavit.
To make matters worse, earlier, before the judge noticed that something was wrong, the plaintiffs’ counsel wanted to obtain default orders on the basis that the two reports were compiled by Malaka, and that he was the one who had signed and commissioned the four expert affidavits, while in reality that was not the case.
The judge said counsel had failed to explain who had fraudulently signed and commissioned the expert affidavits.
“Legal practitioners are required to put the interest of their clients above theirs. In achieving that, they must not at any stage try to deceive the courts.
“For the courts to function properly, it relies on legal practitioners when appearing in courts to act in a reliable and honest manner,” the judge said.
He added that in the four matters before court, there were serious issues which concerned the integrity, reputation and honesty of the legal practitioners who represented the plaintiffs.
He said it was the duty of the Legal Practice Council to investigate these matters, and the RAF should check the validity of the claims if it had any doubt in this regard.
Pretoria News