Medical certificates – can they be questioned?

We have previously published a legal update regarding whether an employer is obliged to accept a medical certificate on face value and the extent to which the employer can choose to query, disbelieve or disagree with it.¹

In that case, the Fair Work Commission (the FWC) appeared to accept that an employer is not required to blindly accept medical certificates as proof of the facts therein. There however, the FWC found that the medical certificates should have been accepted. The medical certificates in question were very detailed, specifically addressing which parts of the job were contributing to the employee's inability to work. This was contrasted with certificates which simply said, for example, "X is unfit to work from A to B".