Motion #08

Minority Disciplinary Report

Certain members of the Disciplinary Committee (DC) wish to place on record that the report submitted to the AGM was not subject to any prior consultation with DC members prior to upload to the AGM forum on Spaces nor was it adopted by consensus as is standard and proper GPEW practice. Once the lack of appropriate discussion and debate regarding the report was belatedly acknowledged, a Teams poll of DC members to approve the report was conducted, which resulted in a mere 6 votes in favour. The report tabled to the AGM should more properly be regarded therefore as a report from the cochairs individually, rather than from DC as a whole.

In light of the lack of consensus across DC regarding the report before the AGM for consideration, the following observations bear stating:

• The report is overly positive regarding the role played by more experienced members in “guiding newer members through their DC membership, whether in hearings, on investigations, or for questions on the complaints system”. At least 4 such newer DC members were not given any experience of a hearing or investigation in the period of this report (July 2023-June 2024) and some had to wait almost a year after being elected to receive their initial induction session.

• Reference is made in the report to litigation having “significantly hindered the handling of complaints”. However, it is not clear to some of us, no substantiating evidence having presented, how much (if any) direct impact such litigation can have had on the work of DC, it being the role of DC members to focus on the details of the specific investigations they are handling.

• Reference is also made to “the imperfect systems we work with” without any attempt to explain the nature of the imperfections, how they impact on the work of the DC nor to provide preferred solutions. In the absence of such explanations and suggestions, this reads to certain of us too much like the making of excuses for inadequate progress in reducing the complaints backlog.

• It is suggested in the report (in the context of reduced working of complaints due to the General Election) that: “this meant that we did not have the volunteer capacity to work as normal from April to July”. This assertion is debatable at best as the availability calendar showed that there were sufficient members available to carry out investigations and hold hearings in April, May, June and even some days in July.

• The report also states baldly that “Misinformation around the party’s disciplinary processes was a minor but growing problem at the last AGM. Regrettably, this problem is now one of the most significant facing DC”. It is unclear how such third-party commentary can in practice impact upon the carrying out of investigations and the holding of panel hearings. DC members should be well-practised in blocking out any “noise”

• The report also states baldly that it is “shameful that some former members are brazenly lying about the disciplinary process and sanctions applied to them, and dismaying that some current members are choosing to believe and amplify them without having sight of the evidence”. We dissociate ourselves from both the inflammatory language and the content of this statement, which is purely a matter of personal opinion and not representative of the views of all members of DC.

• It is also asserted in this context that “DC has handled appalling cases of racism, harassment, bullying, voter fraud, corruption, and sexual assault”. The attempt by the authors of the report to suggest a linkage between such types of cases and those of individuals speaking out about their own cases is inappropriate – many readers are likely to read between the lines and wrongly infer that those commenting publicly have been involved in some way in the commission of such “appalling” acts.

• The co-chairs’ suggestion that current SOPD have significant shortcomings which require radical amendment is also not shared by all members of DC. We do not see the merit in changing from a “complainant versus respondent” system to a “Party versus respondent” system without significant further amendment to disciplinary processes to ensure that the Party does not unwittingly step into the pursuit of personal vendettas via the disciplinary system;

• Further, we would refute that it is “standard practice” for an appeals body to hear appeals merely based on procedural errors. One of the key roles of an appellate body is to re-examine the evidence and to ensure that it was reasonable in all the circumstances to reach the verdict that was arrived at. No individual is completely bias free and (especially where investigations are carried out, hearings held and sanctions imposed by non-legally trained volunteers, as is the case with DC) a right of appeal on the evidence provides necessary safeguards against miscarriages of justice. Indeed, of the 3 appeals cited in the DC report, none of the DC sanctions were upheld, which suggests that such thorough scrutiny by an appellate body is not only desirable but necessary (NOTE: in 2 appeals, the sanction applied by DC was overturned; in the other, the sanction was replaced with a less severe action with all other elements of the appeal not upheld)