_Attorney-General_ (1909) 28 N.Z.L.R. 405. 421, '... in fact, though not
in name, a punishment'. What is more important, although Mr Baragwanath
argued otherwise we have no doubt that reasonable readers of the report
would understand that this order is linked with and consequential upon
the adverse conclusions stated by the Commissioner in the section of the
report headed by him 'The Stance adopted by the Airline before the
Commission of Inquiry'. It is true that the reasons for the costs order
open with a proposition about unnecessarily extending the hearing. But
the passage develops and the later reasons go further. The words chosen
convey that the punishment was not simply for prolonging the hearing. In
particular the statements about cards in the pack are a reversion to the
theme of the 'Stance' section, with its exceedingly strong allegations
in paragraph 377 of 'a pre-determined plan of deception' and 'an
orchestrated litany of lies'.

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