Sports club natural justice

[Joesmith]

Hi all,
myself and 8 others are part of a shooting club committee. Recently we have had an issue with a member who due to un safe handling of a firearm let a shot off in the air negligently. Upon this happening we decided to remove the members right to use his firearms on our farms. We have also found out this may constitute a crime (the projectile landing on land that we have no permission to shoot on or worse someone’s property or person)

we have now received a letter from the member stating his firearm was faulty causing it to discharge, he does admit to removing the safety when he shouldn’t have and when it wasn’t safe too. He has also made a claim that we haven’t followed a natural justice procedure and have unfairly made judgement on him.

The facts still remain that he removed the safety when he shouldn’t and didn’t handle the firearm correctly by his own admission in writing.

We haven’t had him in to go over it because he admitted doing wrong, given the seriousness of what happened we acted quickly to ensure public safety.
the member has now had the firearm dismantled and the parts disposed of so no independent test in the failure can be done, he has also not notified the police of the incident.

We intend to uphold our decision but are unsure if we need to do something else in line with a natural justice procedure?

we are a small non profit members club consisting of like minded people providing services to farms.

[PallasAthena]

Does your group have written 'constitution' or do members sign any written agreement? Do they say anything relevant to this?

"Natural justice" is a vague term and unlikely to be directly relevant. I imagine what he's getting at is that he ought to have the chance to make representations to the committee in person before he was banned but I doubt there is any concept of "natural justice" that says that there is a right to be heard in person.

He has made written representations and you have considered them and for sound reasons you have decided to uphold the ban. I doubt he would have any case in law against you (but note that I am not a lawyer).

Up to you to decide whether to give him a further opportunity (bearing in mind that could create a precedent for any future cases) or just say something like "the committee has considered your representations in your letter dated ... and decided to uphold the decision to ban you for the following reasons....".

[Joesmith]

Yes we have a constitution that we are following. The member has made no comment in regard to this, all members are given a copy when they join.

[Huxie]

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