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 — John Shaqi
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
History
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
We are satisfied that the findings contained in each of paragraphs 348
and 377 are collateral assessments of conduct made outside of and were
not needed to answer any part of the terms of reference. The
Commissioner had no authority or jurisdiction to deal with the affected
officers in such a fashion and the findings themselves are a regrettable
addition to the Report.
Fairness
The concept of natural justice does not rest upon carefully defined
rules or standards that must always be applied in the same fixed way.
Nor is it possible to find answers to issues which really depend on
fairness and commonsense by legalistic or theoretical approaches. What
is needed is a broad and balanced assessment of what has happened and
been done in the general environment of the case under consideration.
In the present case the expressed complaints turn upon the absence of
warning that the affected officers were at risk and that the critical
decisions taken against them were unsupported by any evidence of
probative value. But in estimating the significance of these complaints
it would be unreal to ignore the fact that the findings are not only
very serious in themselves: they are made more potent by the way they
have been so closely associated with one another. Furthermore, each of
them is advanced in this Report as an overt manifestation of one general
conspiracy. That last matter has special importance because for the
reasons just explained we have held the conspiracy findings to be
unjustified. They should never have been made. In saying that we do not
overlook the fact that this Court is making an assessment in isolation
from the viva voce evidence given at open hearings of the Inquiry. But
the present issue is simply whether the affected officers were or were
not deprived of the advantage of answering unformulated charges. In such
a situation the advantage of actually hearing and seeing a witness is
hardly a relevant consideration.
In the course of the survey that has been made up to this point we have
commented upon the nature and significance of the various challenged
paragraphs in the Report. It is unnecessary to traverse the same subject
matter once again and we simply remark that the applicants have
justified their complaints concerning the way in which the findings have
been reached.
Award of Costs
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