The unknown Council
Page 71
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THE DEPARTMENT of Transport's detailed proposals for amendments to the 0-licensing system have attracted a good deal of lively comment in other pages of this paper and elsewhere. In particular, both the RHA and FTA have used some of their most vitriolic language to attack them.
One body whose comments are also being sought, but which are unlikely to appear in CM's pages, is the Council on Tribunals. This body, established in the late 1950s, has a statutory duty to advise the Government in the field of administrative tribunals and statutory inquiries. These cover an enormous range of topics mental health reviews, land and rating valuations, National Health Service Tribunals, social security, immigration, taxation, pensions, allocation of pupils to particular schools and much else.
The Council must be consulted about the procedural regulations for tribunals and statutory enquiries in the fields of their responsibility. In addition to the long list in the previous paragraph these include the Transport Tribunal and the Traffic Courts. Indeed, the Traffic Courts conduct more hearings than almost any other body within the Council's scope more than 20,000 a year.
The Traffic Courts are an excellent example of the sort of specialist quasi-legal bodies which Governments of all political persuasions have in creasingly used to handle matters where justice for the individual is involved, but where the procedures of the ordinary courts are too complicated or otherwise inappropriate.
Although certain formalities are observed for example, those present rising from their .seats when the LA or the Traffic Commissioners enter the general atmosphere is deliberately designed to put at ease those people not accustomed to appearing in Court. There is no evidence on oath, and the LA or Traffic Commissioners do not wear wigs. While some of those appearing especially those on disciplinary matters no doubt have reason to feel nervous, these reasons do not stem from the atmosphere of the Court.
Despite the current fad of dismissing every quasi-official body with the contemptuous term "quango", these specialist tribunals are generally regarded as a valuable method of avoiding the formalities of the ordinary courts, not to mention the attendant costs and delays.
But this relative lack of formality has its own perils. Even the most severe critics of the legal profession's innate conservatism must admit that the procedures established over centuries in the ordinary courts of law do, in general, facilitate the administration of justice. The calm, unemotional, presentation of evidence, and the equally calm cross-examination, mean that the magistrates or the jury reach their verdict as little unswayed by emotion and prejudice as it is possible for human beings to remain. Those who doubt the value of this should visit American courts; they will find that the TV soap operas do not greatly exaggerate the truth.
So when a tribunal or other body with quasi-judicial powers is established, with the duty to ensure that justice is done in a specialised field of law, care must be taken to see that the relative informality does not increase the danger of injustice, instead of making it easier for those affected by that area of the law to obtain their legal rights.
The Traffic Courts have a pretty good record in this respect. The only comments which the Council has had to make on them in recent years concern such relative trivia as the timing of hearings. It commented that some LAs tended to list all their cases for one day without distinguishing between those to be heard in the morning and those who would have to wait until the afternoon. The waste of time to those involved was thought to be unnecessary, and LAs were asked to avoid this where possible.
This was a sensible suggestion, but it seems to indicate that the Council does not think that there are any serious procedural problems; if there were it would no doubt have said so.
The Council's major concern in the field of transport has been public inquiries into new roads, following the rowdiness and disruption which have disfigured a few of these in recent years. As a result of the Council's advice on this, the DTp and the DoE made some fairly radical changes in the way these inquiries are established and conducted.
The critics of the latest 0licensing proposals are above all worried that LAs' inquiries in future might degenerate into the same sort of shambles as some
_major road inquiries. The and FTA have therefore gested that those residen the vicinity of an oper centre who wish to take a( tage of the new right, grant the 1982 Transport Act, to representations on environ tal grounds, should only be to do so in writing, and st not have the right to appE any hearing the LA m conduct.
If the DTp were inclinE make such a radical change original proposals it woul most certainly have to go bi the Council to obtain its ments. The Council's advic highway inquiry procedure firmly in the direction c creasing the rights of objel If this is any guide, the Cc would certainly oppose move to implement the w of the RHA and FTA, or grounds that the procE scales of justice woul weighted against the p making representations.
The Council's advice i: binding on Government Di ments. They can take it or it. Nor is it publicised, tF the annual report whict Council has to lay before liament comments on m which have arisen durin, year.
But the Council is at tremely prestigious body Ministers do not turn do% advice unless there are whelming political or fin reasons. When, as in this general public opinion s likely to be on the same si the Council, the probabil that advice being accept greatly increased.
So if the RHA and FTA i to press this point on Mr they had better read I Council reports, so that thE see what they are likely to against.