Before talking at the fifty-first Lionel Cohen lecture, Mr Justice Beatson discussed a suitable topic with the Dean. Something on public inquiries was suggested, and this seemed an appropriate subject for a Lionel Cohen Lecture:
Why? Because both Britain and Israel have regularly had recourse to inquiries to address widespread public disquiet about a matter. In Israel notable ones are conducted by a judge and under the procedure established by the Commissions of Inquiry Act 1968. In Britain inquiries are conducted by retired civil servants, distinguished legal practitioners and academics as well as by judges, and may be statutory or non-statutory. The Israeli Act, in part based on the United Kingdom’s Tribunals of Inquiry Act 1921 and the 1966 Report of the Royal Commission chaired by Sir Cyril Salmon, 2 provides for such an inquiry when it appears to the Government that a matter of vital public importance requires clarification. In both countries the aim of such inquiries is to find out what happened, to restore the confidence of the public in a service, an organisation, or the government, and thus to draw a line under a crisis. The idealised view of a public inquiry is that it restores order and legitimacy to institutions and serves as an extra-Parliamentary means of ensuring public accountability.
Secondly, in 1966, shortly before the publication of the report of his Royal
Commission, Sir Cyril delivered his Lionel Cohen lecture on Tribunals of Inquiry. He was primarily concerned with the procedures used at inquiries; about how to ensure efficiency and efficacy without imperilling fairness; about the extent to which inquiry procedure should be inquisitorial and the extent to which it should be adversarial. He also dealt briefly with “personnel” issues, stating inter alia that the chairman of a tribunal of inquiry must be a person holding high judicial office. He considered that “apart from assurance that having a judge as Chairman gives to the public that the inquiry is being conducted impartially and efficiently, it ensures that the powers of the Tribunal will be exercised judicially”.
Mr Justice Beatson continued with the lecture considering the constitutional, functional and practical appropriateness of serving judges chairing or being members of such inquiries.
