Can phone data test a doctor's diagnosis?
Legal commentary
A postponement application brought on medical grounds has produced a live question about what may be used to test a clinical opinion. The Commission obtained geolocation data and CCTV footage bearing on the witness's movements. Counsel for the witness objects that such material, "on its own, not being led through a clinician and not being analysed by a clinician or responded to by a clinician is inappropriate secondary evidence which is being used to gainsay the medical opinion." The treating doctor is recorded as warning against "drawing an inappropriate conclusion" from facts that are "elevated to considerations that … open to doubt the clinical diagnosis." South African law already sets a high bar here: an expert medical opinion carries weight through the reasoning that supports it, and a tribunal that discounts an unchallenged diagnosis without engaging that reasoning risks a reviewable irregularity. The authority cited to the Commission puts it in terms of consequence — it would be wrong for a body "which has the livelihood and reputation of a professional individual in the palms of its hands" to proceed "where there is unchallenged medical evidence that the individual is simply not able … to withstand the rigors" of the process. The Commission's answer has been to seek an independent assessment, and the Chairperson records that no indication of willingness to submit to it has been received. The record leaves the central question open: whether lay-interpreted movement data can lawfully displace a treating clinician's diagnosis, or whether it can do no more than prompt the independent examination the Commission has asked for.
In plain terms
A witness says he is too unwell to give evidence. The Commission has phone-location data and CCTV suggesting he has been moving about. His lawyers argue that footage and location pings mean nothing without a doctor to interpret them, and that his own treating doctor has warned against reading a diagnosis off that kind of material. The Commission has asked him to be examined by an independent doctor instead. The Chairperson noted that nothing has come back saying he is willing. So the standoff is about who gets to decide whether someone is well enough to testify: the doctor treating him, an independent doctor, or a body looking at where his phone has been.
Cited claims
Supporting context