Overcoming the barriers to parliamentary workplace regulation: Parliamentary privilege, political parties, and procedural fairness

Parliaments, as the preeminent democratic institution and source of workplace standards, should uphold the highest regulatory behaviour. However, recent instances demonstrate that parliaments frequently fail to ensure all people in the parliamentary workplace are afforded procedural fairness when handling complaints. This is unjust, inconsistent with employment and administrative law, and undermines efforts to reduce poor behaviour within these institutions. This article uses case studies from the UK, Australia, and Canada to show that this denial of procedural fairness stems from two peculiar practices. First, parliamentary privilege undermines members’ rights, such as recourse if defamed or the ability to appeal detrimental action taken by the House. Second, political parties take detrimental action against members without due process while having few obligations to investigate misconduct complaints. Despite these enduring norms, the article argues that parliaments must not be absolved of the responsibility to ensure procedural fairness in regulating member behaviour and proposes that parliamentary privilege and party conduct can be regulated in ways that ensure procedural fairness without compromising parliamentary independence.