Keeping the person in post places the cost of the uncertainty on those least able to bear it

The argument

A second argument asks who carries the risk while a matter is unresolved, on the premise that somebody must. If the office-holder remains in post, the burden falls on those below them. The person who complained continues inside the same structure, reporting to or working near the subject of their complaint. Others who might have come forward watch what happens and generally conclude that it is not worth it. Everyone subject to the authority has to manage an arrangement they had no part in creating. If the office-holder steps aside, the burden falls on them, and proponents accept that it is a real one: time out of a role, damage to standing, and no guarantee of return. Their argument is that this is the fairer placement. The office-holder has institutional standing, income, representation, a voice that will be listened to, and access to whatever process exists. It was also their position that created the situation in which the question could arise at all. Of the two parties, they are the one equipped to carry uncertainty. Proponents add that institutions which keep people in post have learned the consequences repeatedly. Complaints stop arriving, which is read as the matter resolving itself. The conduct, where it was occurring, continues. The eventual reckoning, when it comes, costs the institution far more than an early departure would have, and costs the people who were not protected most of all. Stepping aside while the matter is examined is, on this account, the cheapest available way of ensuring the uncertainty is borne by the party best able to bear it.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Opponents answer that the allocation is not as described, since stepping aside is frequently permanent and there is no process by which the position is recovered when an allegation fails. They add that the argument assumes the complaint is well founded in order to decide who should bear the risk of not knowing whether it is, and that an institution genuinely concerned for those below has other means available, including reassignment, supervision and the separation of reporting lines.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The choice is not between those two parties. Interim measures place the cost on the institution, which is better able to carry it than either and is where responsibility for the arrangement sits. [Rejecting P2] Less standing is true in general and does not establish that this complaint is well founded, which is what the allocation of risk was supposed to be settled without assuming. [Rejecting P3] Better protected describes the position before the allegation rather than after. Someone who has resigned has no institution, no representation and no process, while the complainant retains all three. [Rejecting C] Step aside while the matter is examined is not what happens in practice, and the premises support temporary measures rather than the resignation the conclusion asks for.