The Faculty of Law has, for many years, maintained systems and promoted practices which are designed to minimise the incidence of legitimate student grievances and to ensure that complaints by students are dealt with promptly and fairly.
Students are represented on the faculty board and a number of the committees of the board, including the Curriculum and Legislation Committee, the Graduate Studies Committee and the current ad hoc Curriculum Review Committee. Matters of general concern to students may be ventilated in these forums. Such matters may also be raised for consideration by the Law School Liaison Committee, a committee on which academic staff and students are equally represented.
Complaints of a general nature may be made to the dean or the faculty registrar by the president of the Law Students Society. Some such complaints may be referred to the executive committee. The dean has adopted a practice of meeting, from time to time, with the executive committee of the Law Students Society.
There is an association of graduate students in law and its officers may refer complaints of a general nature to the chairman of the Graduate Studies Committee.
Individual student complaints
It is generally understood by undergraduate law students that the subdean is a kind of faculty ombudsman and that if they have a complaint about some academic matter which affects them personally, they should, normally, take their complaint to the subdean. How the subdean handles the complaint will depend very much on the nature of the complaint.
In some cases the subdean will advise the student to go to the teacher concerned and at the same time advise that teacher of the nature of the concern and what might be done to deal with it. In other cases, the subdean may think it appropriate to refer the complaint to the relevant chief examiner, again with advice. Occasionally the subdean may consider the complaint so serious that it is appropriate for him or her to refer the complaint to the dean.
The dean may convene a three-person ad hoc committee, to be known as the Student Grievance Committee. The composition of the committee will be:
* the dean or nominee
* a member of staff from a panel nominated by Executive Committee
* the president of the Law Students' Society or nominee.
Material received from a party to the dispute for the consideration of the ad hoc committee shall be made available to all parties before the hearing of the grievance appeal. The committee shall make its determination within fourteen days and notify the student (and the dean) of its decision in writing.