Hearts of Oak Assurance Company Ltd v Attorney General
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Viscount Dunedin,Lord Thankerton,Lord Macmillan |
| Judgment Date | 15 March 1932 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1932] UKHL J0315-1 |
| Date | 15 March 1932 |
| Court | House of Lords |
[1932] UKHL J0315-1
House of Lords
Viscount Dunedin.
Lord Warrington of Clyffe.
Lord Atkin.
Lord Thankerton.
Lord Macmillan.
After hearing Counsel, as well on Thursday the 18th, as on Friday the 19th, days of February last, upon the Petition and Appeal of The Hearts of Oak Assurance Company, Limited, whose registered office is situate at Stevenage House, Holborn Viaduct, London, E.C.1, praying, That the matter of the Order set forth in the Schedule thereto, namely, an Order of His Majesty's Court of Appeal, of the 15th of July 1931, might be reviewed before His Majesty the King in His Court of Parliament, and that the said Order might be reversed, varied, or altered, or that the Petitioners might have such other relief in the premises as to His Majesty the King, in His Court of Parliament, might seem meet; as also upon the printed Case of His Majesty's Attorney-General, lodged in answer to the said Appeal; and due consideration had this day of what was offered on either side in this Cause:
It is Ordered and Adjudged, by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in the Court of Parliament of His Majesty the King assembled, That the said Order of His Majesty's Court of Appeal, of the 15th day of July 1931, complained of in the said Appeal, be, and the same is hereby, Reversed: And it is hereby Declared That an inspector appointed by the Industrial Assurance Commission under Section 17 (1) of the Industrial Assurance Act, 1923, for the purpose of examining and reporting on the affairs of the plaintiffs, is not entitled to conduct the inspection in public, but this shall not prevent him from admitting from time to time any persons, the presence of whom is reasonably necessary, to enable him properly to carry out his duty under the Statute: And that an inspector so appointed for the said purpose is not entitled to make public the information gained by him in the course of such examination or of the exercise of the powers conferred upon him by the said sub-section and by Section 76 (5) of the Friendly Societies Act, 1896, or otherwise to make use of such information save for the purposes of carrying out his examination and of preparing his report on the affairs of the plaintiffs and for purposes ancillary thereto: And it is also further Ordered, That the Cause be, and the same is hereby, remitted back to the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice, to do therein as shall be just and consistent with this Judgment.
My Lords,
I am sincerely glad that your Lordships see your way to adhibit your imprimatur to the very sensible form of declaration which the Attorney General has said he would be content with if he is not right in his absolute contention. I say this because I think that every consideration of good taste and proper feeling point to the advisability of an inquiry of this sort being held to be in private. But as the Attorney General has not actually waived the point I am bound to say that I cannot myself see my way to laying it down that the inquiry should be in private, even under the conditions proposed. I say this for this reason: I do not think it is a judicial proceeding which must be held in public; privilege in it would be qualified and not absolute privilege. But the statute does not say whether it is to be in public or in private and therefore I cannot see how a Court of Law can have power to say that it must be in private simply because it thinks that conditions of expediency all point that way.
The argument that weighed with me most in favour of the opposite view was that drawn from the admitted practice as to inspections under the Companies Act. But had the question that is raised here been raised in such a case, I feel I should have felt myself entitled to say that the practice had so long existed that it had, so to speak, been crystallized into something equivalent to a direction in the Act itself. That cannot be said here and I feel myself unable to say that a Court of Law could give a declaration or pronounce an injunction which would make the holding of an inquiry in public illegal. I am therefore obliged formally to dissent from the judgment, while at the same time fully approving of its result.
My Lords,
On 7th December, 1929 the Industrial Assurance Commissioner, in terms of section 17 (1) of the Industrial Assurance Act 1923, appointed an inspector to examine into and report on the affairs of the Appellant Company. In the course of conducting that examination, a question arose as to whether the inspector was entitled to conduct the examination in public, and, after certain correspondence between the Company and the Commissioner, the present action was brought by the Company in order to have the matter settled.
The material part of section 17 of the Act of 1923 is as follows:—
"17.—(1) If, in the case of any collecting society or industrial assurance company, in the opinion of the Commissioner there is reasonable cause to believe that an offence against this Act or against the Friendly Societies Act, 1909, has been, or is likely to be committed, the Commissioner or any inspector appointed by him for the purpose shall have power to examine into and report on the affairs of the society or company, and for that purpose may exercise in respect of the society or company all or any of the powers given by subsection (5) of section seventy-six of the Friendly Societies Act, 1896, to an inspector appointed under that section.
(2) On himself holding such an inspection or on receiving the report of an inspector so appointed the Commissioner may issue such directions and take such steps as he considers necessary or proper to deal with the situation disclosed therein and in particular may in the case of a society award that the society be dissolved and its affairs wound up, and in the case of a company may present a petition to the court for the winding up of the company."
Subsection 5 of section 76 of the Friendly Societies Act, 1896, provides as follows:—
"(5) An inspector appointed under this section may require the production of all or any of the books and documents of the society, and may examine on oath its officers, members, agents, and servants in relation to its business, and may administer such oath accordingly."
It may be added that under section 45 (2) of the Act of 1923 where the Commissioner awards that a collecting society be dissolved and its affairs wound up, the society is entitled to appeal against the award to the High Court or in the case of a society registered in Scotland to the Court of Session.
In the present case the Commissioner did not make the examination himself but appointed an inspector, but it seems clear that the decision in the present case will equally apply where the Commissioner himself makes the examination.
There is no express provision either in the Act of 1923 or in the Act of 1896 as to whether the examination is to be in public or in private, or as to any discretionary power in the matter. The solution of the question, in my opinion, will rest mainly on a consideration of the nature and purpose of the examination.
In their statement of claim the appellants seek the following relief, vizt.:—
"(1) A declaration that an inspector appointed by the Industrial Assurance Commissioner under section 17 subsection (1) of the Industrial Assurance Act, 1923, for the purpose of examining into and reporting on the affairs of the plaintiffs is not bound to conduct such examination in public.
(2) A declaration that an inspector appointed by the Industrial Assurance Commissioner under the said subsection for the said purpose is not entitled to conduct such examination in public.
(3) A declaration that an inspector so appointed for the said purpose is not entitled to make public the information gained by him in the course of such examination or of the exercise of the powers conferred upon him by the said subsection and by section 76 subsection (5) of the Friendly Societies Act, 1896, or otherwise to make use of such information save for the purpose of preparing his report on the affairs of the plaintiffs."
Although the Respondent originally maintained in his defence that the inspector was bound to hold the examination in public, he did not oppose the first declaration asked for before this House, but maintained that the inspector had a discretionary power.
It appears to me to be clear that the object of the examination is merely to recover information as to the Company's affairs and that it is in no sense a judicial proceeding for the purpose of trial of an offence; it is enough to point out that there...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Re Pergamon Press Ltd
...investigate and report. They sit in private and are not entitled to admit the public to their meetings. See the Hearts of Oak case in 1932 Appeal Cases, 392. They do not even decide whether there is a prima facie case, as was done in Wiseman v. Borneman, 1969 3 Weekly Law Reports, 14 But t......
-
Re Pergamon Press Ltd
...investigate and report. They sit in private and are not entitled to admit the public to their meetings. See the Hearts of Oak case in 1932 Appeal Cases, 392. They do not even decide whether there is a prima facie case, as was done in Wiseman v. Borneman, 1969 3 Weekly Law Reports, 14 But t......
-
Minister of the Interior v Bechler and Others; Beier v Minister of the Interior and Others
...138); Denby (Williams) & Sons, Ltd v Minister of Health (1936 (1), K.B. at p. 342); Hearts of Oak Assurance Co., Ltd v Attorney-General (1932, A.C. 392). It is an essential characteristic of a quasi-judicial body that it should have the power to adjudicate on matters and make decisions affe......
-
Bernstein and Others v Bester and Others NNO
...They sit in private and are not entitled to admit the public to their meetings: see Hearts of Oak Assurance Co Ltd v Attorney-General [1932] AC 392. They do not even decide whether there is a prima facie case, as was done in Wiseman v Borneman [1971] AC C But this should not lead us to mini......