Letting off steam
Sir: 1 agree with what R. A. Cline has to say (1 September) and hive always felt that the appro- priate tribunal for planning appeals is the local county court. The judges and registrars of those courts have local knowledge and can apply judicial impartiality in deciding such appeals which a ministry inspector must. in the eyes of the appellant or objector, lack because he is the servant of the ministry. So often what is required is not so much qualification as a surveyor, architect or engineer as ordinary good taste and a feeling for the good things which ought for all our sakes to be pre- served. balanced with a realisation that one cannot, in the nature of present day life, preserve literally everything intact. If the adjudicator is seen to be impartial then on the whole the public will accept his judgment as, by and large, litigants accept the decisions of the courts. The more justice moves out of the courts into the hands of the executive or its tribunals the further do we move from the concept of the rule of law which is fair to rich and poor alike. The courts are far from perfect but they are better, and can be made better still, than any system which in the last resort depends upon party politics of any shade or the dictate of a civil "servant or minister remote from the real issues of life and tending, intentionally or not, to support the big battalions rather than the little man.
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