Natural Justice, Separation of powers and Rule/Regulation by Opinion
After reading that Mr McHeyzer has apparently been promoted to a senior role in the Health Regulator (presumably AHPRA) led me to look up the Senate enquiry into said organisation in 2017. The submissions are eye-opening and bear startling similarities to Glen's case - here are just a selection:
"The fundamental doctrine of the separation of powers in the Commonwealth of Nations (the Westminster system, which includes Australia) must be operational in any real democracy. It appears that the joy of practicing as a health practitioner in Australia is now replaced by daily feelings of fear and angst amongst an increasing number of registrants. This impacts on the direct and indirect delivery of human services by both the public and private sectors.
The basic requirements of acting according to natural law are unfortunately sometimes absent or capricious within the current operational jurisprudence of the Australian Health Practitioners Regulatory Agency (AHPRA) (and many of predecessor boards and their delegates) – being the “judge, jury and executioner” by way of National Law and some repealed legislation."
"It is perceived that the current complaints mechanism is more concerned with the prosecution of practitioners than protecting patient safety through remediation of the issues that lead to the complaint."
"AHPRA is staffed by people that are implementing the National Law yet do not have legal qualifications. o There are health practitioners and lay people on the boards that are interpreting a National Law that has only just been developed, let alone tested. · The Medical Board seem to ‘make up the law as they go along’."
Sound familiar? If true, it must surely be a sad indictment of the "system" that the same fundamental complaints seem to crop up in completely different fields and professions - what is it about the Australian system of government that gives rise to such abuses of governance?