Police Commissioner Grant Stevens this week authorised the release of details about proceedings in the Police Disciplinary Tribunal (PDT). which were previously only published in the internal police gazette.

The PDT is a civil tribunal overseen by a magistrate and tasked with handling allegations of police misconduct. If it finds a police officer breached discipline, the matter is referred to the Police Commissioner to determine an appropriate punishment.

Secrecy laws prevent publication of PDT complaints, proceedings or outcomes unless authorised by the Police Commissioner.

But these laws are being reviewed by parliament’s Crime and Public Integrity Policy Committee, which has received several submissions raising concerns about the structure and secrecy of the PDT.

In a statement on Wednesday, SA Police said: “The Commissioner of Police has now decided it is appropriate that disciplinary outcomes relating to police officers are reported publically on the South Australia Police website in the same way they are published in the South Australia Police Gazette.

“This increased level of transparency will strengthen public trust and confidence in the police disciplinary system and better serve its ultimate aim – the protection of the public.”

Only the officer’s rank, conduct breach, the nature of misconduct and resulting sanction will be published online, with their name, age, gender and branch/section withheld.

SA Police said a police officer’s legal right to confidentiality if they are subject to disciplinary proceedings “will not be compromised by expanding publication in this manner”.

“There will be no information published that will identify, or tend to identify, the sanctioned police officer,” it said.

Police on Wednesday published details of four sanctions arising from PDT proceedings between January 1 and March 31 this year.

The list of Police Disciplinary Tribunal outcomes published by SA Police this week. Image: SA Police

This included a sergeant who was fined $1000 for displaying “unwanted and physical conduct towards another employee, whilst off duty”.

In another case, a senior constable was fined $600 for, while being under internal investigation, contacting another employee and being “verbally abusive to them”.

The new disclosure regime falls short of recommendations from Judge Gordon Barrett KC, who in 2020 published a major review of the Police Complaints and Discipline Act 2016.

Barrett recommended the Act be amended to require the police commissioner “as soon as is reasonably practicable” to make a media statement if the PDT finds a police officer committed misconduct.

He also recommended the age, gender, rank, branch/section, the nature of the misconduct and the sanction applied be included in the mandatory statement, although not the officer’s name.

Magistrate Simon Smart, president of the PDT, went one step further last year in saying there is “no need to accord secrecy to the proceedings or the outcome of the proceedings”.

“A clear and transparent process would promote public confidence in the disciplinary process and, indeed, in the police force itself,” Smart submitted to the parliamentary inquiry.

“That factor should, in my opinion, outweigh any embarrassment to individual police officers.”

However, the Police Commissioner and the police union have argued that anonymity for police officers in disciplinary proceedings must remain.

Stevens told the inquiry that “we must remember these are ultimately matters relating to the employee/employer relationship”.

“Whilst outcomes of disciplinary proceedings are reported in general terms, the naming of involved officers (or publishing of information that might tend to identify them) would deny police the same protections afforded to other South Australian public sector employees,” he wrote.

“It should be noted the more serious matters proceeding to a criminal prosecution are made public, as is the case for anyone in the community.”