{"id":772547,"date":"2024-05-18T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-18T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=772547"},"modified":"2024-05-17T15:32:32","modified_gmt":"2024-05-17T13:32:32","slug":"faking-sick-notes-in-south-africa-youre-committing-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/772547\/faking-sick-notes-in-south-africa-youre-committing-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"Faking sick notes in South Africa – you’re committing fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South Africa has seen a boom in medical certificate abuse both in public and private sectors \u2013 with numerous labour court cases highlighting that forging a sick note and handing that to an employer constitutes serious misconduct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It amounts to dishonesty and fraud and serves as a fair reason for dismissal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was outlined<\/a> by legal experts at Baker McKenzie, Johan Botes and JJ van der Walt, who said that a recent case of sick leave abuse in South Africa that found its way to the Labor Appeal Court again confirmed that an employer’s zero-tolerance approach to dishonesty and fraud was correct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, “employees who are dishonest in their timekeeping practices [lie about being sick, and forge medical certificates] will likely have a bitter pill to swallow when their actions are revealed,” said Botes and van der Walt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The case<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Botes and van der Walt said that a recent Labor Appeal Court (LAC) judgment, Sibanye Rustenburg Platinum Mine v. Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union obo Sono and Others<\/em> “confirmed what most, if not everyone, accept as common sense.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was that forging a sick note and providing it to your employer constitutes serious misconduct as it amounts to dishonesty and fraud and serves as a fair reason for dismissal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The judgment, handed down earlier in May, considered evidence of employees who submitted fraudulent medical certificates and received pay for days on which they did not work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An investigation uncovered that the employees did not actually visit a specific medical facility as indicated in their medical certificates. The certificates were signed by an unidentified individual without their initials or surname, and did not include a practice number.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The Appeal Court concluded that the employees submitted the medical certificates with the single intention of deceiving their employer,” said Botes and van der Walt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The court upheld the employer’s zero-tolerance policy on dishonesty and fraud, emphasizing that such actions severely damaged the trust between the employer and employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Legal commentary<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There can be little if any, doubt as to the negative impact of dishonesty in the workplace. This holds true for dishonest timekeeping practices as well,” said the legal experts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Botes and van der Walt note that employees risk losing their jobs if they deceitfully claim attendance, seek unjustified overtime, lie about being sick, or submit false medical certificates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Employees who are dismissed for dishonesty related to purported sickness should expect no sympathy from the employment tribunal or Labor Court,” said Botes and van der Walt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Read: Blocking people from jobs based on criminal records in South Africa \u2013 what bosses should know<\/a><\/strong>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Legal experts at Baker McKenjzie analysed recent labour court cases where employees attempted to deceive their employers about being sick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":767618,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[11747,3778],"class_list":["post-772547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-baker-mckenzie","tag-labour-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772547"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":772594,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772547\/revisions\/772594"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/767618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}