Version September 2019.
The CAA Ethics Reporting Procedure has been developed in adherence with the CAA Ethics Policy with the intention of promoting ethical, collegial, and professional behaviour by its members. The Code of Ethics including further explanation of expected behaviour is available on the Ethics Policy page. This reporting procedure is open to anyone who believes they have witnessed or been subjected to behaviour by a CAA member that breaches this code of ethics.
A report can be made either openly or anonymously by sending an email to ethics@caa-international.org. To further protect anonymity, reports can also be made via an online form in which the name of the reporter may be included but is not required. The report of breach of the Ethics Policy should provide the following information:
- Date of incident
- Are you a victim or a witness?
- Name(s) of alleged perpetrator(s)
- Name(s) of other possible witnesses
- Location of incident
- Details of incident
- Any additional information
The first step is for the CAA Ethics Committee to establish that the alleged perpetrator is a CAA member or was at the time of the incident. Although complaints can come from both members and non-members, the CAA Ethics Policy only applies to CAA members. It also applies to CAA national chapters and their members, subject to changes in light of local laws. If it is determined that the alleged perpetrator(s) is not a member then the complainant (if known) will be notified that the report cannot be investigated further. However, the record of the complaint will be retained for 3years and should the alleged perpetrator(s) join CAA and subsequent reports of breaches of the code of conduct are reported, then this can be considered as evidence in a future investigation. A record of a complaint received against a non-CAA member will be reported withholding all personal information.
Once confirmed by the CAA Membership Secretary that the alleged perpetrator(s) is a member, then the ESC will be notified that an ad hoc committee of 5 past and present CAA members need to be appointed by the ethics officers and ESC to manage the investigation. Ad hoc committee formation: one ethics officer has to be part of the committee, only one ethics officer can be part of the committee, the committee should be diverse, it should aim to represent the people involved or the institutional context or country of the incident, members can have no personal connection to the people involved. Social media profiles and information can be used in evaluations but should not be stored, storing a screenshot and name of person/profile is sufficient.
It will be up to this committee to evaluate the evidence and determine its merit. If the complaint is found to have merit, then this will be reported by the ad hoc committee to the ethics officers and ESC, along with the committee’s proposed punitive measures. All content and discussions by the ad hoc committee will be treated confidentially and only a designated member will report back to the ESC and the EC. Punitive measures need to be approved by both the ESC and the ethics officers. The CAA ESC can perform the following punitive measures following violations of its ethics policy: issue a warning, remove current membership, block future membership, contact local authorities. If the reported complaint is found to have merit the following will be published: the fact that a report was found to have merit will be published, a brief description of the nature of violation, the evaluation procedure followed, and the punitive measures taken. Publication aims to highlight the occurrence of the ethics policy violation, the evaluation procedure and the punitive measures CAA took.
If no merit is found, then a record of the investigation will be reported withholding all personal information. If no merit is found all data related to the record and investigation will be deleted by the ethics officers and the ad hoc committee members.
If the investigation determines that the law has been broken and contact information has been provided to the committee for a victim(s), then they will be consulted before contacting law enforcement.