E-mail to the Clerk from David Laverick,
President, Adjudication Panel for England
I am attaching an exchange of correspondence
between Roger Sands and myself which followed a recent Westminster
Hall Debate.[24]
You will see that he ends by suggesting I make
contact with you. I have not been able to do so by telephone and
so have obtained your e-mail address from the duty Clerk.
The Adjudication Panel for England, of which
I am the President, was established by the Local Government Act
2000 as a tribunal to consider references about the possible failure
of Members of Local Authorities to abide by the Code of Conduct
which applies in local government, following its being laid before
Parliament in accordance with the Act. I and members of the Panel
are appointed by the Lord Chancellor in accordance with the usual
process for judicial appointments. The Panel operates through
Case Tribunals which comprise at least three members of the Panel.
There is a right of appeal to the High Court against the decision
of a Case Tribunal.
I confess to having a little difficulty in understanding
the reasoning behind the House's practice of requiring Members
not to comment upon matters before the Courts whilst apparently
leaving them free to comment on matters which are about to be
heard by a Case Tribunal. If one of the reasons for the sub
judice rule is to avoid giving the impression that there is
an attempt to influence the decision of the body whom Parliament
has charged with making a judicial decision I cannot see why the
rule should be different if that body is in the first instance
a tribunal rather than a court.
The point I made in the above paragraph could
of course apply generally to other Tribunals apart from my own
and is perhaps a matter I could pursue with Lord Justice Carnwath
who now has an overall responsibility for Tribunals. But that
would take time and I am unsure of the timescale of your Committee's
enquiry. Not all tribunals will be affected to the same extent
but it is probably inevitable that the Adjudication Panel will
have coming before it some issues of considerable political interest.
Case Tribunals have already had cause to consider the propriety
of the actions of various Leaders of Political Groups on local
authorities and on more than one occasion have disqualified or
suspended such Respondents. I know that members of Parliament,
of whatever political persuasion, are often approached, mostly
by their political contacts but also sometimes by constituents
in connection with those proceedings.
I do need to stress that I hold no brief from
other parts of the Tribunal system, but I do think a case could
be made out for extending the House's sub judice rule to
take accounts of matters before my own tribunal and perhaps also
some others.
Could the Committee be persuaded to widen their
inquiry to encompass consideration of the point?
February 2005
24 Not printed. Back
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