Law Association cautions Bernard

THE Council of the Law Association has written to the Commission of Inquiry into the Piarco Airport Project advising "great caution" against following the advice of Lord Justice Scott of the Privy Council, with respect to procedures at public inquiries.

The Council, through its secretary, Hendrickson R M Seunath, SC, stated that Lord Scott's approach to commissions of inquiry has been the subject of great controversy and criticism. In his letter to Chairman of the Piarco Commission, former Chief Justice Clinton Bernard, dated April 28, Seunath wrote: "Of the inquiry conducted by Lord Scott, it is written that it is difficult to recall an inquiry which has provoked a more deeply felt sense of injustice and disbelief on the part of those investigated. The inquiry has attracted more argument and dissent than any inquiry which a distinguished member of the House of Lords could remember. The Rt Hon the Lord Howe of Aberavon said that we certainly need to be sure that the methodology of the Scott inquiry is never to be seen as any kind of pointer to the proper conduct of future investigations of its kind." The Piarco Airport Commission has now sat for 139 days. On March 27, comments by Lord Scott were read into the record. These comments were quoted from an article by Lord Scott on "Procedure at Public Inquiries:The duty to be Fair."