A JUDGE will now decide whether a finding of misconduct against former councillor Elise Chapman should be upheld, after a Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal hearing concluded yesterday.

VCAT judge Marilyn Harbison reserved her decision as to whether a tweet Ms Chapman sent including an image of children with mutilated genitals and the words “would you like your fanny sliced off?” constituted misconduct.

Barrister for the City of Greater Bendigo, Eddy Gisonda, used his closing address to urge the tribunal not to allow any potential breach of official dispute resolution procedures to stand in the way of passing judgement on the appropriateness of the tweet.

He said the issue was one that “screams for being resolved” and would remain “hanging in the air” in the absence of a clear judgement.

“Council can’t countenance, under any circumstances, that it’s acceptable for a councillor to speak to members of the public and treat them in the way that Ms Chapman did,” he said.

“Ms Chapman can have a view on [female genital mutilation] and express her view on it, she has on a number of occasions and that’s fine, but when doing so [she has] to abide by councillor conduct principles.”

But Julian Fidge, who represented Ms Chapman throughout the proceeding, told the tribunal the dispute resolution process was important because of its “formality”.

“They did not give the dispute resolution process a fair crack,” he said.

“It was doomed to failure.”

Speaking after the close of proceedings Ms Chapman said she was disappointed the matter had come as far as VCAT, but would not rule out further appeals.

“It should never have got to here, it’s just that simple,” she said.

“We’re not ruling anything in or out, we’ll just wait and see.”

Dr Fidge characterised the dispute as a matter of “freedom of expression” and flagged the possibility of taking proceedings as far as the High Court if Ms Chapman’s appeal was not upheld.

“We hope that we will prevail and if we don’t, then of course, I would love to see what the High Court says about it because I think the High Court is the ultimate authority and they are really good at protecting free speech,” he said.