Ms Antoinette Cunningham:

Yes. This is one of the real concerns we have when talking about fairness. Every citizen is entitled to fair procedure and natural justice. The expanded powers and remit of GSOC will now allow it to go unsupervised and unquestioned about what is considered a reasonable investigation. GSOC can start an investigation on an incident of concern without notifying the member concerned that he or she is under investigation. We do not know what constitutes an incident of concern as there is no definition. It now seems an incident of concern can emerge when somebody posts a social media clip that can be out of context, some keyboard warrior generates a public outcry because of it, and suddenly a member can find him or herself under investigation. If a person is investigated, the reason for the investigation should be set out.

On the final issue as to why we are so concerned about this, it seems the maximum powers are given to GSOC for a minimum disciplinary offence. GSOC uses the same powers to investigate something of a very serious criminal nature as it does for minor disciplinary issues. That is unfair because it is a completely different set of circumstances. What is worse, GSOC can categorise this as a formal investigation without defining what a formal investigation consists of. These are some of the concerns we have.