achieving justice in the modern community.


Natural Justice

This Court has had to examine and apply the principles concerning
natural justice and fairness quite often in recent years. In translating
the ideals of natural justice and fairness into current operation in New
Zealand we have been influenced as to general principles mainly by
decisions of the Privy Council and the House of Lords but, of course, we
have had New Zealand conditions and practicalities very much in mind.
The result has been a pragmatic approach.

Some overseas Courts have held that if all that occurs is inquiry and
report and the report is not in law a condition precedent to some
further step the rules of natural justice are automatically excluded.
That was the premise, for instance, of the High Court of Australia in
_Testro Bros. Pty. Ltd._ v. _Tait_ (1963) 109 C.L.R. 353. A contrary
approach is to be found in the judgement of Schroeder J.A. representing
the view of the majority of the Ontario Court of Appeal in _Re Ontario
Crime Commission_ (1962) 133 C.C.C. 116, although that case depends
partly on Ontario statute law. There is little attraction in the idea of
automatic exclusion. Commissions of Inquiry have compulsory statutory
powers of insisting on evidence and their findings can affect rights in
the ways already outlined. It seems to us highly unlikely that the New
Zealand Parliament intended them to be wholly free of the elementary
obligation to give persons whom they have in mind condemning a fair
opportunity for correcting or contradicting any relevant allegation.

Some reinforcement for the view that they are under that obligation is