Changes to South Australia's corruption and maladministration watchdog run the risk of denying some people natural justice, a parliamentary inquiry has been told.
The Law Society of South Australia has detailed a number of issues it has with the state government's proposed bill that would allow public hearings for matters of maladministration and misconduct but maintain secret hearings in corruption cases.
President Tim Mellor says the society is concerned there is no automatic right to legal representation for people appearing before any public hearing.
He's also raised issues with the conduct of those hearings with the new bill offering the commissioner "extraordinarily wide discretion" in regard to how the investigation will proceed.
"If the public aren't concerned about that, we say they ought to be," Mr Mellor said in his evidence on Monday.
Parliament's Crime and Public Integrity Committee was told the changes could raise questions of witnesses not being afforded procedural fairness and natural justice.
In the courts and in the context of other inquiries, the accused had clearly defined rights, including the disclosure of evidence against them and the right to test that evidence through cross-examination, the law society said.
It also raised other issues with the government's bill including the lack of any provision to suppress evidence in certain circumstances, and the ability of witnesses to refuse to answer questions on the basis of self-incrimination.
Mr Mellow said refusing to answer in such circumstances was a "fundamental common-law right".
Premier Steven Marshall said the state government would look at any recommendations from the parliamentary inquiry in respect to the ICAC changes.
But he said the government was determined to push ahead with public hearings when they were in the best interests of the people of South Australia.
"What we want to do is to have greater transparency around the work of the ICAC," Mr Marshall said.
"We've supported that, the Labor Party opposed it. We'll be implementing it."
