A public inquiry , also known as a tribunal of inquiry , government inquiry , or simply inquiry , is an official review of events or actions ordered by a government body. In many common law countries, such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and Canada, such an inquiry differs from a royal commission in that a public inquiry accepts evidence and conducts its hearings in a more public forum and focuses on a more specific occurrence. Interested members of the public and organisations may make (written) evidential submissions, as is the case with most inquiries, and also listen to oral evidence given by other parties.
14-651: The Vassall Tribunal was a public inquiry undertaken in 1963 by the British government in the wake of the John Vassall affair. Vassall, a civil servant working in the Admiralty , had been revealed the previous year to be a Soviet spy, and considerable criticism had been levelled at the security arrangements that were in place. The tribunal was established to investigate the claims and determine whether any blame could be laid on officials or ministers. At first,
28-541: A formal finding that the project will produce public benefit. This procedure was established by the law on expropriation enacted on 7 July 1833, which extended an earlier law enacted in 1810. A number of historically important public inquiries have taken place in South Africa since the advent of full democracy in 1994. A number of which have looked into national scale events such as systematic human rights abuses during apartheid or wide scale corruption . In
42-435: A government, and tend to lose credibility when they find no fault on the part of the government. In France, any major project which requires the compulsory acquisition of private property must, before being approved, be the subject of a public inquiry (usually by the prefect of the region or department in which the project will take place); the favourable outcome of such an inquiry is a déclaration d'utilité publique ,
56-412: A public inquiry into an event was found to be dependent on several factors. The first is the extent of media coverage of the event; those that receive more media interest are more likely to be inquired. Second, since the appointment of a public inquiry is typically made by government ministers, events that involve allegations of blame on the part of the relevant minister are less likely to be investigated by
70-416: A public inquiry. Third, a public inquiry generally takes longer to report and costs more on account of its public nature. When a government refuses a public inquiry on some topic, it is usually on at least one of these grounds. The conclusions of the inquiry are delivered in the form of a written report, given first to the government, and soon after made public. Reports usually make recommendations to improve
84-649: The Daily Mail and Reg Foster of the Daily Sketch , who refused and were jailed for contempt of court, Lord Radcliffe sentencing Mulholland for six months and Foster for three months. Public inquiry Typical events for a public inquiry are those that cause multiple deaths, such as public transport crashes or mass murders . In addition, in the UK, the Planning Inspectorate , an agency of
98-538: The Commissions of Inquiry Ordinance was enacted for establishing such a commission. The commission established after the 2012 Lamma Island ferry collision produced a report of its findings which they made public; an internal report was kept confidential. In the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests , one of the five key demands of the protesters, was establishing another commission for the protests itself. Prefect (France) Too Many Requests If you report this error to
112-496: The Department for Communities and Local Government , routinely holds public inquiries into a range of major and lesser land use developments, including highways and other transport proposals. Advocacy groups and opposition political parties are likely to ask for public inquiries for all manner of issues. The government of the day typically only accedes to a fraction of these requests. The political decision whether to appoint
126-615: The United Kingdom, the term public inquiry, also known as a tribunal of inquiry, refers to either statutory or non-statutory inquiries that have been established either previously by the monarch or by government ministers of the United Kingdom , Scottish , Northern Irish and Welsh governments to investigate either specific, controversial events or policy proposals. Non-statutory public inquiries are often used in order to investigate controversial events of national concern,
140-876: The advantage being that they are more flexible than the statutory inquiry as they do not need to follow the requirements of the Inquiries Act 2005 , The Inquiry Rules 2006 (UK, excluding Scotland) and The Inquiries (Scotland) Rules 2007. Statutory inquiries can be held as subject-specific public inquiries, however most are now held under the Inquiries Act 2005 which repealed the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921 . Statutory public inquiries, unlike non-statutory inquiries, have legal powers to compel witnesses. This list excludes Public Local Inquiries (which encompasses Planning Inquiries, Compulsory Purchase Order Inquiries, Listed Building Inquiries etc.) In Hong Kong,
154-785: The inquiry was to be conducted by three senior civil servants: the Permanent Under-Secretary of the Treasury, the Treasury Solicitor, and the Second Secretary at the Treasury. Before it could begin, letters were discovered in Vassall's possession from Tam Galbraith , who had been Civil Lord of the Admiralty . Vassall had been Galbraith's junior private secretary, but some people suggested that it
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#1732779841003168-444: The quality of government or management of public organisations in the future. A 2016 study found that the reports of public inquiries are not effective in changing public opinion regarding the event in question. Empirical studies do not find support for the claim that appointing a public inquiry leads to a decline in media attention to the inquired issue. Public inquiry reports appear to enjoy public trust only when they are critical of
182-635: The verdict was not universally accepted. Eventually, the Prime Minister was compelled to open a wider inquiry, conducted by three jurists: the Viscount Radcliffe , Mr Justice Barry , and Milner Holland QC. The inquiry determined that Vassall had not been helped or favoured by any of his seniors. The inquiry was controversial in some quarters for requiring journalists to reveal the sources that they claimed for their allegations and for having prosecuted two journalists, Brendan Mulholland of
196-445: Was odd that a minister would communicate by post with an official of his own department, and there was considerable speculation of impropriety in the press. Given Vassall's homosexuality, which had become known, it began to be put around that he and Galbraith were involved with each other and that Galbraith might have shielded him from discovery. The committee of civil servants investigated the correspondence and declared it innocent, but
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