Quality Policy does not include a commitment to comply with legal requirements

Jim Wynne · Jun 27, 2022

I can't understand why such an ado is made over what is almost universally nothing more than a vacuous motherhood statement. In this passage from the George Orwell essay Politics and the English Language, substitute the word "quality" for "democracy" and you'll see what I mean:

The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of régime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different.

Stating that the organization will meet legal, environmental or any other "requirements" just means that those requirements will be met until it's most convenient to not meet them.

blackholequasar · Jun 27, 2022

Our Quality Policy is pretty vague about this but does mention regulatory - basically, we are 'committed' to providing quality products/services that "meet regulatory requirements". Which requirements? It is explained during the audit and we've never really had an issue with it thus far. It changes based on our customer needs.

Sidney Vianna · Jun 27, 2022

ChrisM said:
Going back to the OP, you should not need to state that you are going to comply with the Law, it is implicit !

Still, in some other ISO Management System Standards, the requirement is very specific. For example, ISO 14001:2015 requires the environmental policy to have a statement to the effect that top management is committed to fulfill it's compliance obligations.

It might sound redundant to have a commitment to comply with laws, but, the principle is that the ISO MSS makes it explicit that the organization's top management is to commit to this as part of the management system implementation. The onus for that to happen is with top management.

Quality Policy does not include a commitment to comply with legal requirements

Jim Wynne

blackholequasar

The Cheerful Diabetic

Sidney Vianna

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