PRICE ORDER DEFENDED

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25934, 14 October 1949, Page 8

PRICE ORDER DEFENDED

SUBMISSIONS BY MR EVANS (New Zealand Press Association.) WELLINGTON, October 13. The functions of the Price Tribunal were legislative both in substance and form, said the Solicitor-General (Mr H. E. Evans, K.C.) in the Supreme Court to-day, opening the case for the Price Tribunal and the Director of Price Control in the action brought by F. E. Jackson and Company, Ltd.. Auckland, seeking a writ of certiorari to remove Price Order 1001 into the Supreme Court to have it quashed. The first event in the story was the restoration of New Zealand* currency to sterling parity, said Mr Evans. This immediately gave rise to a problem in price control. If the matter had been left to itself competition with parity goods would in time have forced down the prices of non-parily goods. On the other hand it was necessary in the public interest that consumers should get the full benefit of the change as soon as it was fairly available. The reason for prescribing a deadline date was that without one i< would become increasingly difficult to supervise price orders. “Price orders have to be made for the control of a few who evade the law as long as possible,’’ said Mr Evans. “Without the deadline date it would have been impossible for any supervising officer to be sure goods offered for sale at pre-parity prices had not been purchased at parity prices.” Government’s Decision The problem affected all goods brought into New Zealand, Mr Evans continued. The Government had recognised a single deadline date to be unfair in view of the varying speed of the movement of goods. The task of fixing a deadline date was left to the Price Tribunal.

“At once the tribunal made Price Order 296,” said Mr Evans. “That order was essentially a legislative act applying to the whole community alike. Everything bought at the parity price had to suffer a price reduction commensurate with the reduction in the purchase price.” Submitting that these orders were legislative in effect through a delegation of legislative power. Mr Evans said he would refer to the view taken by the Supreme Court of the functions of the Arbitration Court; that they were legislative in substance if judicial in form.

“The legislative power of the Price Tribunal is shared with the Minister, who gives .his authority to price orders.” said Mr Evans. “The tribunal is provided with powers and machinery for holding investigations. These functions are consultative. Its primary method of holding inquiries is by means of public sittings. The proceedings of the tribunal are parallel with those of a committee of Parliament, which sometimes sits in public, sometimes in private, to hear evidence, and has behind it the powers of the House. Though it does not legislate itself, it makes recommendations to Parliament, and so takes its share in legislation.” Tribunal’s Discretion

Mr Evans submitted that the tribunal was not compelled to hear any person in particular. It had complete discretion as to its methods of finding out the relevant facts for its consideration.

“I submit this Court will not interfere with it in its exercise of this discretion,” said Mr Evans. “When 1 say the Court will not interfere I mean that it will not interfere either with the tribunal’s discretion as to the method, public or private hearings, nor its discretion as to consultations or inquiries.

“If in any respect the tribunal commits errors of judgment in these matters the person aggrieved has a remedy through political means or bv making application to the tribunal to consider the circumstances of his case and to exercise its powers of amending price orders, or by issuing a new price order.”

Mr Evans said the plaintiff’s remedy was to go to the tribunal again and ask for his representations to be considered after the tribunal ha*d heard him personally or had read any written submissions he might have sent. Even in the case of a quasi-judicial tribunal submissions need not be orally made.

“The tribunal was entitled, with Mr Jackson's letters before it, to come to the conclusion they were sufficient indication of what the company wished to put before it.” said Mr Evans “If they were wrong in this assumption it is an error of judgment not open to review by this Court, but remediable in the ways I have suggested.” Decision was reserved.