A medical doctor has taken her former patient-cum-lover to court, accusing the man of violation of her rights after terminating the affair.
In a precedent-setting case pending before the constitutional and human rights division of the High Court, the medic identified as LT has sued SRJD for causing her extreme stress and embarrassment, and psychological torture after she ended the relationship in 2015.
Evidence filed in court shows that the two met sometime in 2013 when SRJD was a patient at her clinic and the doctor-patient relationship soon turned into an affair in 2014.
It lasted for about a year. In October 2015, she reportedly informed him of the decision to end the relationship but the man allegedly became hostile, and indignant, and started being intrusive and harassing her, her children and husband and other family members and professional colleagues.
SRJD, on his part, wants the court to dismiss the case, arguing that LT has not satisfied the required constitutional threshold as to demonstrate the alleged violations of her rights.
He further says that some of the reliefs she is seeking are incapable of being granted by the court.
“Lastly, that a consideration of the petition on merits demonstrates that it falls short for it to be allowed as prayed. As a consequence, the petition ought to be found to lack merit and dismissed with costs to the respondent (SRJD),” he says.
Justice Chacha Mwita adjourned the hearing, which was set for this week, to June 21, for highlighting of submissions. SRJD offers that the trust established between the doctor and patient soon blossomed into an affair as she filled the void in his life while he was going through a lot of issues.
“Given the nature of her practice, her vast years of experience and my condition at the time, it is not surprising that the petitioner quickly gained my trust at a time when I was struggling to cope with a considerable amount of legal and familial tribulations which impacted my health both physically and mentally to date,” he says.
LT says he willingly entered into an intimate relationship with her in the knowledge that such a relationship could be terminated by either party.
She also said he expected him to retain her privacy as far as her children are concerned and her workplace.And despite demands that he stops, he allegedly continued to do at will a move allegedly actuated by malice.
In November 2019, Justice Weldon Korir (now a Court of Appeal judge) issued an injunction stopping SRJD from communicating with LT, her husband, relatives and friends, pending the determination of the case.
He was also barred from visiting LT at her home or workplace, messaging her by email, WhatsApp or even calling her. LT said he had been stalking her and would regularly appear at her place of work, create a scene and leave, causing her extreme stress and embarrassment.
He also allegedly started making incessant calls, offline and online demanding to speak to her while she pleaded with him to cease the communication.
“The respondent with the intention of putting in jeopardy the petitioner’s work, made communication with the director of the hospital (the petitioner’s boss), in which he made disclosures, about their intimate relationship and copied several members of staff to the email,” she said.
She added that in the email, the man attached her photos in intimate sexual positions. LT further accuses the former lover of being cruel and subjected her to inhumane and degrading treatment.
“The degrading and inhuman actions of the respondent have diminished the petitioner’s dignity in the eyes of her children and friends, contrary to the provisions of Article 28 of the constitution,” she said.
She says his actions subjected her to immense psychological torture, embarrassment and humiliation in the eyes of her children, colleagues and friends.
LT wants the court to declare the harassment, intimidation and publication of her private and confidential photographs and information is unconstitutional, unlawful and a violation of her fundamental rights enshrined in Articles 28, 29, 31 (c) and (d) of the constitution.
“A declaration that the petitioner’s fundamental right under Article 28 of the constitution have been contravened by the respondent, that is to say, the petitioner’s fundamental to protection of her inherent human dignity,” she said in the petition filed in 2019. She is also seeking compensation for defamation, inhuman and degrading treatment, psychological trauma and damage to her reputation.
LT wants the man also compelled to delete and or correct the untrue and misleading information passed to the public in publishing her photographs.
“An order that the respondent does correct and offer an unconditional apology regarding the photographs sent to her family and public,” says LT.
In opposing the case, the man says LT has merely listed the rights that were allegedly violated but has not offered an explanation or justification supported by evidence to specify the alleged actions that caused the violation of her rights.
He said she has not identified or specified the emails through which he allegedly shared the private images with other persons, or attached the photographs that were allegedly shared.
“It is not sufficient for the petitioner to merely state the provisions of the constitution which she alleges to have been violated and infringed upon: in the absence of a demonstration of how these rights were violated as alleged, we humbly submit that the petitioner has not satisfied the required threshold so as to be entitled to any relief before this court,” he said.
Although SRJD wants the case dismissed for lack of merit, he says he communicated his remorse to LT in a letter dated January 2021 and explained the physical, mental, psychological and emotional distress he was suffering at the time.
