The Procedure of Public Inquiries
| Date | 01 June 1956 |
| Author | DENYS MUNBY |
| Published date | 01 June 1956 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1956.tb01487.x |
The
Procedure
of
Public Inquiries
By DENYS MUNBY
Mr. Munby
is
Lecrlcrer
in
Political
Economy
at
King’s College, Aberdeen.
The Character
of
the Decision
HE
public inquiries with which
I
am concerned in this article, are those
T
where decisions have to be made
on
a matter of public policy, political
decisions, which involve at the same time highly complcx technical consider-
ations, involving a knowledge of one or more of the social sciences.
In
particular
I
am concerned with the kind
of
public inquiries held under the
Town Planning Acts
,
whether into the planning authority’s development
plans or arising from appeals against a planning authority’s decisions in a
particular case, and with the Transport Tribunal’s procedure in considering
railway charges schemes. Similar considerations also arise in dealing with
Monopolies and Restrictive Practices.
Mr.
R.
S.
W.
Pollard has made a distinction between “tribunals in
which ministerial policy is often the determining factor
in
the decision and
those where it has little or
no
part
’’I.
This is one of the points at issue,
but not the only one. If ministerial policy
is
involved, as in the case of
planning appeals, they
“
cannot be regarded as mere
lites
inter partes,
as
isolated contests between property-owners and public authorities,” but
“
may have to be viewed in the light
of
overriding considerations of national
policy
’’2
There may, however, be
no
particular considerations of national
policy involved in decisions about railway charges or monopolistic practices.
All
parties may be agreed that railway charges should be related to railway
costs
and
monopolistic practices judged by their effect
on
the efficiency of
industry
;
the decision has
to
be made as to which action
will
lead to this
end. What such a decision requires is expert knowledge about railway
costs, the economic effects of particular pricing policies, or the town planning
criteria
for
housing density and open space requirements. But expert
knowledge alone cannot be decisive
;
a practical judgment has
to
be made
in a particular case weighing the balancing factors
on
each side. Cases are
unique, and though there may
be,
for example, a body of economic principle
relevant to the matter under discussion, this cannot be applied
in
the same
way that legal principles have
to
be applied to particular cases. Precedent
and principle are not relevant to many of the decisions to be made
;
they
are often unique and political.
It
will
be seen that public inquiry
in
these cases is very different from,
for example, a public inquiry such as the Lynskey Tribunal or the Crichel
Down
Inquiry,
where rhe main matter at issue was
the
unearthing of the
facts of the case, and relatively simple judgments had to be made as to the
propriety of certain people’s actions. Nor is
a
planning appeal like an appeal
from a decision of the Assistance Board, or
an
appeal about National Insurance,
or conscientious objection. In these cases there is a relatively clear-cut
issue affecting
an
individual, and only affecting public policy
in
so
far as a
precedent may be established that may deprive the Exchequer
of
too
much
money, or the Army of too many recruits. There is
no
balancing of the
175
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