Constitutional law professor’s evidence at loan inquiry

Press, 23 October 1980, Page 3

Constitutional law professor’s evidence at loan inquiry

i PA Wellington A Cabinet Minister should not get involved in Government business where ties of “kinship or friendship” exerted influence on the “proper and impartial” performlance of his duties. i This was the opinion of Professor K. J. Keith, dean of Victoria University’s faculty of law, at yesterday’s sitting of the Commission of Inquiry into the Marginal Lands Board land loan controversy.

A professor of jurisprudence and constitutional law, he was attempting, generally, to outline the principles governing possible conflict of Ministers’ public and personal interests. Professor Keith considered a Minister should also not become involved in Government business where kinship or friendship ties appeared to exert influence on performance of these public duties.

The commission is empowered to bring in a finding of impropriety in a loan controversy that has involved two Ministers — Mr V. S. Young, Minister of Lands and a personal friend of Mr and Mrs J. M. Fitzgerald, the loan applicants, and Mr Maclntyre, Minister of Agriculture, and, father of Mrs Fitzgerald.

Professor Keith said application of the exertion of influence principle to the facts of a particular case was, in the first instance, a matter for the Minister, and then for the Prime Minister. Professer Keith said Ministers had important public duties, and reconciling these with private interests was the subject of a 1956 report prepared by the Ministers’ Private Interests Committee. The report, adopted unanimously by the committee and agreed to by Parliament, set out basic principles which should be observed by Ministers, he said. Under cross-examination by Mr M. R. Camp, counsel

for Mr Young, Professor Keith agreed that die principles were the same as those set out in the Ministerial handbook, details of which were attached to recent commission’s 'evidence by Mr Young. Replying to Mr J. J. Loftus, a commissioner, Professor Keith pointed out that the principles were not rules of law but rules regarding impropriety to be self-en-forced.

Constitutional safeguards were provided through the Parliamentary system and

the press. The Commissioin’s chairman, Mr B. D. Inglis, Q.C. inquired if safeguards tended to break down when the exertion of influence or what appeared to be so, was not open to such checks. Professor Keith replied there were obviously problems about these rules in a secret or semi-secret context. The chairman noted that this situation might be ’ applicable in the Fitzgerald case where very few people would have expected the

details to reach “the light of day.”

T Mr J. T. Eichelbaum, i counsel for Mr Maclntyre, {wondered if a Minister 'crossed the dividing line between propriety and impropriety unwittingly and was 'not conscious of doing so, ■whether his action would lamount to impropriety. | Professor Keith said in i terms of the way he had [thought through the issue [over the last few days the i answer was “yes,” but he [acknowledged there could be

“exceptional circumstances" where a Minister found his interests in conflict through

no fault of his own. Mr J. O. Upton, counsel assisting the commission, said he had no further evidence to call. He said he had received a letter from Mr W. Dorman giving the writer’s views on the Fitzgerald’s Long Gully property. Mr Dorman’s father had owned the property for sevyears. ' The chairman said the commission would accept the letter, which would be open to the public. Counsel will begin final

summing-up when the commission resumes on Tuesday.