1999 Law Handbook - Grievance procedures*

Grievance procedures*

General
Individual student complaints
Complaints about administrative matters

*GRADUATE STUDENTS SHOULD REFER TO THE HEADING 'GRIEVANCE PROCEDURES' IN THE CHAPTER CALLED 'THE GRADUATE PROGRAM'.

General

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 Undergraduate and Graduate Studies Committies and the Admissions 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.

Individual student complaints

It is generally understood by undergraduate law students that the registrar 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 registrar. How the registrar handles the complaint will depend very much on the nature of the complaint.
In some cases the registrar, who is the nominated faculty grievance officer, 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 registrar may think it appropriate to refer the complaint to the relevant chief examiner, again with advice. Occasionally the registrar 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 four-person ad hoc committee, to be known as the Student Grievance Committee. The composition of the committee will be:

a senior member of staff nominated by the dean to act as chair;
two members of academic staff from a panel nominated by Executive Committee;
the president of the Law Students' Society or nominee.

Full details of the university policy on student academic grievances can be found in the Student resource guide.

Complaints about administrative matters

The manager for student relations and inquiries receives complaints from students about administrative matters and is charged with investigating and settling complaints.