Pathmanathan v Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency

The applicant's submissions 7 Neither of the applicant's affidavits set out any evidence concerning her current financial position. Inferentially, she is not impoverished. She lives in Boston. She affirmed her first affidavit in Oxford, England. She affirmed her second affidavit in Los Altos, United States. She flew to Melbourne to represent herself. Instead of making germane submissions as to the question of costs, the applicant in her affidavits maintained a series of complaints against the Agency. 8 In her first affidavit, the applicant stated (amongst other things): As evident in the email from a Professor of cardiology on 5 September 2019 and the related ABC Lateline programme aired on 3 September 2019, it is reasonable to form the belief the Respondent does have a predilection in their processes in favour of putting particularly those perceived to be foreign practitioners out of business through the process of sham regulatory investigations. The applicant then asserted that she had been forced "out of business, and into forced retirement" because of the "Respondent's practice and processes or lack thereof". It was therefore "unreasonable" to award costs against her. 9 In her second affidavit, the applicant stated (amongst other things): The Respondent solicited, invented information, made misleading recommendations to the Medical Board and published false findings as to my conduct, performance and health as a Specialist Anaesthesiologist. a. The Respondent intended to cause injury through their recommendations to the Board … as per the Chairman of the Board's letter on 27 May 2016, whereby the conditions/restrictions remained whilst they "waited to seek confirmation that you (I) had not developed a health impairment"; b. The Respondent had sufficient expertise and experience to afford procedural fairness and prevent a wilful and harmful "error", "mistake" and "ill-judgement". If justice were to prevail the Respondent's conduct it is more probably a finding of malfeasance in public office would be made [sic]. The applicant then asserted she had been "denied employment and other opportunities to be able to even pay for cost of living let alone pay costs" and that she had "paid significant legal and medical costs as a result of the Respondent's 'deals', sham investigations and publications". She also asserted that the "Respondent is a well-resourced government agency capable of avoiding and rectifying any harm caused". 10 As to the first affidavit, I know nothing about the email of 5 September 2019 or the ABC programme which was said to have been aired in the same month. As to the second affidavit, as best as I can discern, the applicant is seeking to agitate grievances she has with the Agency either to persuade me to depart from findings made in my earlier reasons or to decline making an award of costs in the Agency's favour. 11 Suffice to say, it has simply not been established that the conduct of the Agency forced the applicant out of business. Rather, my finding, at [27] of my earlier reasons, was that I had seen no evidence "that the Agency took steps in relation to the applicant because of her age, gender, or ethnicity or because of any disability she might have had (none were really suggested). She was not discriminated against for those reasons." 12 Nothing in the affidavits has displaced that finding. Nor was it appropriate, in the context where I gave leave for the parties to file submissions on the issue of costs, for the applicant to seek to contradict the findings I had made in my reasons.