In _Re Royal Commission on Thomas Case_ (1980) 1 N.Z.L.R. 602 a Full Court (Molier, Holland and Thorp JJ.) held inter alia that the Court may prohibit a Commission from acting in excess of its jurisdiction and that the creation of a Commission pursuant to the Letters Patent does not exempt it from the supervisory role of the Court. However part of the Full Court's decision in that case is the subject of a pending appeal to this Court and other proceedings relating to the Thomas Commission have been moved into this Court. So we refrain from expressing any final view upon it. For the foregoing reasons we think that if the applicants make out their claim that the findings of the Erebus Commission in paragraph 377 are outside the commissioner's terms of reference, they could be granted a declaration to that effect at common law. To obtain a setting aside of the findings under s. 4 (2) of the Judicature Amendment Act 1977 they have to show in addition that the findings were made in the exercise of a statutory power of decision. We think this requirement should not present final difficulty if regard is had to the evident intent and spirit of the 1972 Act and particularly the amendments made by Parliament in 1977. Judicature Amendment Act 1972 Was the statutory power one of _decision_? The 1977 Amendment Act brought statutory investigations or inquiries into rights or liabilities within the definition of "statutory power". An inquiry into whether any person caused or contributed to the crash by an act or omission in respect of his duties is an inquiry into liabilities. But that is less important for present purposes than the fact that the Amendment Act also extended the concept of statutory powers of decision to those "affecting" the rights of any person. The purpose was manifestly to make the ambit of review under the Act at least as wide as at common law. This point is dealt with in _Daemar_ v. _Gilliand_ (1981) 1 N.Z.L.R. 61. We think it would be very difficult to justify an argument that findings likely to affect individuals in their personal civil rights or to expose them to prosecution under the criminal law are decision "affecting" their rights within the meaning of the Act. In the present case, for example, it was virtually certain that the findings of the Erebus Commission would be published by the Government. The effect on the reputation of persons found guilty of the misconduct described in the Report was likely to be devastating, at common law every citizen has a right not to be defamed without justification. Severe criticism by a public officer made after a public inquiry and inevitably accompanied by the widest publicity affects that right especially when the officer has judicial status and none the less because he has judicial immunity.