To help improve our values of democracy and transparency, the new Constitution now requires all committee members, and candidates for the committee roles, to declare any conflicts of interest they have.
Declaring a COI does not have any disciplinary ramifications, but it can mean some limits are placed on the committee members to ensure those COIs do not interfere with their duties to the society. This may include preventing a speaker from chairing a particular motion or asking a committee member to not attend a meeting where the committee is discussing a partnership with a company they work for. Normally, the committee member will be given a good reason for this but they may challenge it through the constitutional complaint process.
Certain committee roles require different COIs to be declared, and we have listed common COIs of each role that need to be declared (this is not an exhaustive list):
President and Vice President Speaker?
- Memberships of any political and non-political organisation
- Any financial role in any organisation (only applies to the President Speaker)
- Any leadership roles in any organisation
Chancellor
- Memberships of any non-political organisations, especially financial organisations
- Any financial role in any organisation
- Any leadership role in any organisation
Secretary
- Memberships of any non-political organisations
- Any high-level administrative role in any organisation
- Any leadership role in any organisation