SALE OF LIQUOR IN RANGIORA

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 26987, 12 March 1953, Page 3

SALE OF LIQUOR IN RANGIORA

WHOLESALE LICENCE CONFIRMED COMMISSION RULES ON PROCEDURE The Licensing Control Commission has upheld the decision of the Hurunui Licensing Committee to grant a new wholesale licence at Rangiora to B. A. Fitzpatrick and Company, Ltd. In a reserved judgment, the commission dismisses an appeal against the committee’s decision by the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company, Ltd. After discussing the procedure at the meeting of the committee when five applicants for the new licence were heard, the commission rules that cross-examination "of witnesses should be allowed before licensing committees.

The judgment says that the appeal was heard in Wellington on February 11 and 12. “In the proceedings before the licensing committee, it appears that when the evidence-in-chief of the first witness for the first applicant had been given, counsel for the next applicant sought leave to crossexamine the witness.” it says. “The chairman of the committee intimated that no such cross-examination would be permitted, and upon counsel asking if that applied to all applicants, he was informed that it did. No counsel protested against this ruling or asked that any objection to it should be noted.”

Appellant’s Contentions At the appeal hearing, it was argued Wild, for the appellant, that a licensing committee was a judicial tribunal; that in proceedings before it, where several applicants contended for a- single licence, the right of cross-examination was fundamental; and that the denial of that right amounted to misconduct of the proceedings. Mr T. P. Cleary, for B. A. Fitzpatrick and Company, Ltd., did not contest the right of every applicant a cence to cross-examine other applicants, but maintained that, though there had been no express acquiescence in the ruling of the committee’s chairman, the silence of experienced counsel and their failure to record any objection amounted to an imnlied acquiescence. - "Il is conceded that there Is nothing in the nature of legislation or regulation to govern the procedure of licensing committees upon the actual nearing of applications for wholesale licences,” says the commission. After quoting at length from a Court of Appeal judgment delivered in 1951, the commission says: “If, upon a contest for a single wholesale licence before a licensing committee, the proceedings are one and in the nature of a controversy between the parties C°urt of Appeal holds they are, then the ordinary rule, that crossexamination should be allowed, ought to prevail. ... If, of appeal to the commission, there is a statutory right of cross-examination of witnesses, it appears to the commission that crossexamination should be allowed before the licensing committee.” On the question of implied acquiescence, in the ruling of the committee’s chairman, the commission decided against Mr Cleary. From the appellant’s affidavit and statements of counsel and correspondence placed before it, the commission was satisfied that nothing amounting to acquiescence, in the sense of acceptance and agreement to abide by the chairman’s ruling, took place before the committee.

Validity off Proceedings Mr Wild submitted that, because of the failure to allow cross-examination, the decision of the committee was defective, and that the commission should completely disregard it and come to an independent decision. After referring to legal aiffthorities quoted by Mr the commission’s judgment says the commission cannot agree that the whole of the proceedings before the committee should be disregarded; or that the commission is under an obligation or duty to reach an independent decision. “In the result, the commission is not satisfied that the decision of the committee should be reversed,” says the judgment. “The appeal is disallowed and the decision ok the committee is confirmed. The commission thinks there was good ground for the appeal—and in an important aspect, namely the insistence on the right of cross-examination, upon which > the appellant succeeded—and therefore no order for costs is made against any party.”