LETTERS English Inquisition
Sir: Sir David Croom-Johnson's contention that Sir Richard Scott's inquiry was not `bound' by the principles of the 1966 Salmon inquiry which laid down guidelines for independent inquiries is technically right (Letters, 3 February). But Sir Richard Scott and I are agreed that that does less than justice to the importance of Lord Salmon's recommendations.
In my own inquiry's report on Ely Hospi- tal, I refer to Salmon as 'an ideal at which to aim'. Sir Richard, in his lecture to the Chancery Bar Association, went further. `So far as procedures for the purpose of fairness are concerned,' he said, 'it is diffi- cult to discern any necessary difference between . . . inquiries . . . set up under the 1921 Act and other ad hoc inquiries such as my own.' I respectfully and entirely agree.
So, in all inquiries of an inquisitorial kind, 'the right to representation is', in the words of Sir David Croom-Johnson's own report, 'unquestionably of great impor- tance'. It was for that reason, I suggest rather than the statutory nature of his inquiry — that Sir David and the lay col- leagues by whom he (unlike Sir Richard) was assisted exercised their discretion to grant legal representation to (amongst oth- ers) five government bodies. They did so very properly 'on the basis that counsel instructed by each of these bodies would watch over the interests of past or present members of the staff who were not other- wise represented'.
How much better it would have been if the present contentious inquiry had been modelled upon the basis of Sir David's example, which I drew expressly to Sir Richard Scott's attention.
Howe of Aberavon
House of Lords, London, SW1
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