Our industry is fraught with tales of quality audits from hell and other less than desirable places, usually the result of standards written by folks who know a little but expand it to encompass a lot. Even well thought out standards can lose their effectiveness in the hands of auditors who are systems people rather than technical specialists. Conflicts arise when the systems people begin pontificating on technical matters they may not fully understand but despite this lack of knowledge, the deck is stacked in their favor in such situations.
The quality auditor can cite rulebook and law—some or all of which—may be irrelevant to the issue at hand but their advantage is that the subject of their audit has to prove the audit findings are wrong to maintain their quality registration. I use the term ‘law’ loosely since, in criminal matters, the reverse is the case—the accuser has to prove his or her case.