Ensuring procedural

fairness

WISE Workplace

investigators, educators

and grievance handlers

Principle one

• The right to be heard

Principle two

• The right to an unbiased

decision maker

Principle three

• The right to have the

decision based on

evidence

Bias can be...

• Actual

• Potential

• Perceived

Bias continued

• One biased all biased

rule

If one member of a panel

of decision makers is

biased the whole decision

is biased

Bias continued

• ‘Reasonable person test’

applies to

perceived/potential bias

Actions to take:

• Provide details of wrong doing as soon as possible to the accused in writing

• Give the accused a chance to present their side of events

Actions to take

• Collect ALL evidence as

is reasonably practical

• Remove those with bias

from the case

About the author

• Harriet

Stacey, MScPsych, BSocSc and

2013 IPPY award winning

author, has been an academic, a

police officer and an

investigator of workplace

misconduct since 1989.

www.wiseworkplace.com.au