Judgments of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on Proceedings to Review Aspects of the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Mount Erebus Aircraft Disaster: C.A. 95/81New Zealand. Court of Appeal
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Judgments of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on Proceedings to Review Aspects of the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Mount Erebus Aircraft Disaster: C.A. 95/81
New Zealand. Court of Appeal
Air New Zealand; Aircraft accidents; New Zealand. Royal Commission to Inquire into the Crash on Mount Erebus, Antarctica, of a DC10 Aircraft Operated by Air New Zealand Limited
Applying the well-settled principles already mentioned, we think that if
in making those statements the Commissioner exceeded his terms of
reference or acted in violation of natural justice, the costs order is
not realistically severable from that part of the report and should be
quashed. For the purposes of the present case that is sufficient to
dispose of the argument based on _Reynolds_ v. _Attorney-General_ (1909)
29 N.Z.L.R. 24 that after a Commission has reported it is functus
officio and beyond the reach of certiorari or prohibition.
Naturally the stance of the airline at the inquiry directed by the terms
of reference was not included expressly in those terms. The argument
presented in effect for the Commissioner on the question of jurisdiction
is that comments, however severe, on the veracity and motives of
witnesses were incidental to the carrying out of the express terms. We
accept unhesitatingly that what is reasonably incidental is authorised
(as was recognised in _Cock's_ case at p. 425) and also that to some
degree any Commission of Inquiry has the right to express its opinion of
the witnesses, much as a Court or statutory tribunal has that right.
But we think that it is a matter of degree. For present purposes it is
not necessary to decide whether the law of New Zealand is still, as held
in _Cock's_ case, that a Commission of Inquiry cannot lawfully be
constituted to inquire into allegations of crime. That issue may be
raised more directly by the litigation regarding the Thomas Commission.
The issue now to be decided is whether the Commissioner had powers,
implied as being reasonably incidental to his legitimate functions of
inquiry into the causes and circumstances of the crash, to make
assertions amounting to charges of conspiracy to perjure at the inquiry
itself.
In considering that issue the importance of not unreasonably shackling a
Commission of Inquiry has to be weighed. It is also material, however,
that such a charge is calculated to attract the widest publicity, both
national and international. It is scarcely distinguishable in the public
mind from condemnation by a Court of law. Yet it is completely without
the safeguards of rights to trial by jury and appeal. In other words, by
mere implication any Commission of Inquiry, whatever its membership,
would have authority publicly to condemn a group of citizens of a major
crime without the safeguards that invariably go with express powers of
condemnation.
We are not prepared to hold that the Commissioner's implied powers went
so far. We hold that he exceeded his jurisdiction in paragraph 377.
If, contrary to the view just expressed, the Commissioner did have
jurisdiction to consider allegations of organised perjury, natural
justice would certainly have required that the allegations be stated
plainly and put plainly to those accused. That was not done. If it had
been done, what we have said earlier is enough to show that they could
well have made effective answers.
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