is that, to adapt words used by Williams J. delivering the judgment of
this Court in _Cock_ v. _Attorney-General_ (1909) 28 N.Z.L.R. 405, 421,
the judgment for costs was in fact, though not in name, a punishment.
The reasons given for the costs orders have definite echoes of
paragraph 377 and the immediately preceding paragraphs. The airline was
being required to pay costs, and not for delaying tactics simply. A
significant part of the reasons was that in the view of the Commissioner
its chief witnesses had been organized to conceal the truth.

It is true that, on purely verbal grounds, refined distinctions can be
drawn between the sections of the Report dealing with the airline's
stance at the inquiry and with costs; but we have no doubt that their
overall effect is that most readers would understand them as closely
associated. It follows, we think, that if the findings in paragraph 377
are invalid for excess of jurisdiction or breach of natural justice they
should be seen as playing a material part in the order for $150,000
costs and as requiring the Court to set aside that order. Irrespective
of the order for costs, we think that there are strong arguments to
support the view that there is jurisdiction to review the findings in
challenged paragraphs on grounds relating to jurisdiction and natural
justice. There is a good deal of support in the authorities for
excluding or strictly limiting judicial review of Commission findings
and Mr Baragwanath carefully put the arguments forward. But, as we say,
there are reasons why the Court ought not to adopt the facile approach
of saying that the function of the Commission was merely to inquire and
report and that as the Commission's findings bind no-one they can be
disregarded entirely as having no legal effect.


Scope of Royal Commission