Peczalski v Comcare

The Application under the AAT Act 15 I have already set out the essence of Mr Peczalski's explanation such as it is of his delay in applying the appeal. He conceded before me that he could not "give a convincing explanation" of it. Mr Peczalski alleged that in May 1998 he began to suspect that "key documents" leading to the rejection of his claim had been forged or otherwise falsified or tampered with. On 29 June - nearly 3 weeks after Comcare had instituted its Supreme Court claim - he sought (inter alia) those documents from Comcare under s 59 of the SRC Act. Insofar as presently relevant that request was rejected on 21 August on the grounds that the documents sought had previously been supplied to his solicitors and that he could obtain copies from them. 16 On 13 July he obtained a preliminary forensic examination of a photocopy of one of the documents he wishes to challenge. It states insofar as presently relevant. "Re: Preliminary Examination of Photocopy Documents I received for preliminary examination a group of eight photocopies. I directed my attention to one photocopy document headed "SECTION 5 HISTORY OF MEDICAL EXAMINATIONS, ADVICE OR TREATMENTS" and bearing an image of a Department of Health stamp impression with date 17 JUL 1985. Amongst the handwritten entries reproduced on this photocopy page is a sentence which reads "Says he has Never had any back pain in the past". There appears to be significant evidence on this photocopy that the original may have been subjected to alteration and erasure of a previous entry. I would need to examine in the laboratory the original document and associated pages in order to confirm this, and possibly to decipher remnants of the original entry. I could then examine and compare inks and possibly make relative time of writing determinations of the entriey on this and other pages. The original should be minimally handled." 17 Mr Peczalski's first application to this Court was made 4 days later on 17 July 1998. This allegation of falsification of documents is at the centre of his proposed challenge to the Tribunal's decision though it has been enlarged upon to include other documents and allegations of witness tampering as well. Additional, independent grounds have also been propounded. These will be returned to below. 18 Before considering the present application it is necessary to emphasise what is the issue to be decided. It is not whether the Tribunal was in error in its decision - although the merits of the proposed application can properly be taken into account by me. Rather it is whether an extension of time to institute an appeal to this Court should be granted. 19 The principles to be applied in such an application are well known. I need merely state the following and in proposition form.