Can an Outsider Chair a Disciplinary Hearing

Having passed through consultancy at some point in my career l noted that In SMEs, it is common to find small-business owners handling HR systems intuitively, without a theoretical grasp of terms and concepts. HR is often seen as red tape—an administrative and cost burden that gets in the way of sales and profit. For this reason, it is often overlooked until the last minute when the organization needs to dig itself out of a hole and in most cases, it is labour law-related in particular disciplinary hearings and they run to consultants to clean up the mess.

As a starting point, for any disciplinary hearing to produce a fair outcome it will have to comply with an impartiality which is one of the basic rules of natural justice. When a disciplinary committee sits in a hearing the chairman is not supposed to take sides, his or her role is to independently assess the circumstances of the case and give an uncontaminated verdict. verdict.

A fundamental right of employees accused of misconduct or poor performance at disciplinary hearings is for the hearing to be chaired by an impartial presiding officer. This requirement holds true regardless of whether the chairperson is employed by the organisation that employs the accused employee or is an external person hired by the employer to chair the hearing.

The right of the employer to use external chairpersons has been confirmed in the CCMA Guidelines for South Africa but in Zimbabwe, a look at the definitions used in SI 15 of 2006 will indicate that the person or persons who should preside over a disciplinary case should be from the same organisation. This must be someone who is part and parcel of the organisation. The definition of a disciplinary committee states that:

“disciplinary committee” means a committee set up at a workplace/establishment composed of employer and employees’ representatives, to preside over and decide over disciplinary cases and/or worker grievances.

It is submitted that the words “to preside over and decide over disciplinary cases and/or worker grievances” do indicate that such a committee is not there to preside over a single case. Above that, once someone hires a consultant, the inescapable feeling is that this consultant has been hired to dismiss an employee at all costs. He or she becomes an interested party who is bound to please his or her master. In law the issue of impartiality. is very critical.