Page 269 - Week 01 - Thursday, 14 February 1991
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He notes that Holdsworth, a noted English legal historian of early this century who wrote a very long multi-volume treatise called A History of English Law, made reference to the first committees of state in the seventeenth century which had an inquiry power, apart from a royal commission. He said:
They were called by various names - committees of state, juntas, cabals or cabinets.
I have been looking for a different title to the Royal Commissions Bill. Obviously we could not have a junta Bill or a cabal Bill. A cabinet Bill is equally inappropriate.
Then he says that the term "board of inquiry" gradually came to be used in broad terms. Citing Holdsworth at page 18, Hallett says:
These commissions and references show us one of the ways in which the state is setting itself to solve the many problems of this new age.
This is the boards of inquiry. He says:
Through them it inquires and informs itself - they do the work done today by royal commissions.
These older forms of boards of inquiry in England were not called royal commissions. Writing in the 1920s, Holdsworth said, "Today they do the work that is done by royal commissions". Again, in law there seems to be no distinction between a royal commission and a board of inquiry, in terms of their powers and what they can do.
Therefore, we suggest that it is unnecessary to maintain the distinction in the ACT and one form of inquiry body would do. Returning again to my earlier concern about the use of the title "royal commission", I think it is not an accurate description of the statutory body that is to be created. There is an understanding in the public mind that a royal commission is a body created under the hand of the Governor or the Governor-General. There is a suggestion in the community that a royal commission is somehow more important than an inquiry.
Mr Humphries: It is.
MR CONNOLLY: Mr Humphries says that it is; but, as I have endeavoured to show and I think his Law Office advice would confirm, in law it is not. There may be a public perception of that, but I do not think it is necessary to have two pieces of legislation for that. The suggestion that the Opposition will be making in the detail stage is that we, in effect, do away with the Inquiries Bill and proceed with the Royal Commissions Bill but style and title it the "Commissions of Inquiry Bill".
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