Sir: Lord Justice Croom-Johnson may not have followed the Salmon
principles in the Crown Agents' inquiry, but he did at least, unlike Scott, work with expert lay assessors. Sir Richard Scott, by contrast, dismissed the need for such assessors as 'impractical' and 'otiose'. He seems to have forgotten the French saying, juge unique, juge inique'.
Lord Justice Croom-Johnson is right to say that the Salmon principles apply only to inquiries under the 1921 Act. It is, however, a suggestio falsi to imply that the Salmon Commission thought it acceptable for its principles to be flouted in non-statutory inquiries such as the Scott inquiry, the Clark inquiry into Crichel Down or the Denning inquiry into the Profumo affair. In fact, Salmon thought that such inquiries should not be set up at all. In paragraph 42 of its Report, the Commission recommended quite unequivocally 'that no Government in the future should ever in any circumstances whatsoever set up a Tribunal of the type adopted in the Profumo case to investigate any matter causing nation-wide public con- cern'. One of the reasons for this was that, were there to be an adverse finding against someone who had not been legally repre- sented, that individual would feel, and the public might also feel, that he had a real grievance in that he had had no chance of defending himself (paragraph 38).
Vernon Bogdanor
Brasenose College, Oxford
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