Mahon appeal will begin tomorrow

Press, 4 July 1983, Page 8

Mahon appeal will begin tomorrow

Staff correspondent London

The appeal by the Mount Erebus Royal Commissioner, Mr Peter Mahon, against the New Zealand Court of Appeal decision which led to his resignation as a High Court judge will begin in the Privy Council in London tomorrow.

The Court of Appeal had quashed the order he made that Air New Zealand should pay $150,000 towards the cost of the Royal Commission into the 1979 Mount Erebus disaster, and it ruled that Mr Mahon exceeded his jurisdiction in his report in which he said Air New Zealand witnesses had told an “orchestrated litany of lies.”

Mr Mahon subsequently resigned as a judge. Much of the legal argument before the Privy Council is expected to be on the question of whether Mr Mahon was entitled to make this finding and order the airline to meet part of the Royal Commission’s costs. In the controversial paragraph 377 of his report, Mr Mahon said: “No judicial officer ever wishes to be compelled to say that he has listened to evidence which is false.

“He always prefers to say, as I hope the hundreds of judgements which I have written will illustrate, that he cannot accept the relevant explanation, or that he prefers a contrary version set out in the evidence. “But in this case, the palpably false sections of evidence which I heard could not have been the result of mistake or faulty recollection.

“They originated, I am compelled to say, in a

predetermined plan of deception. “They were very clearly part of an attempt to conceal a series of disastrous administrative blunders and so in regard to the particular items of evidence to which I have referred I am forced reluctantly to say that I had to listen to an orchestrated litany of lies.” The Privy Council appeal will be heard by a board of five members headed by the senior Law Lord, Lord Diplock, who presided over the hearing of last year’s Samoan nationality case. Also hearing the appeal will be another well known law lord, Lord Scarman, who has headed a number of commissions of inquiry, including one into the 1981 Brixton riots. Other members of the board are Lord Bridge, who succeeded Lord Diplock as chairman of the Security Commission which investigates security matters, Lord Templeman, and Lord Keith, who heard the Samoan case.

Facing them in the oak-

panelled chamber at No. 9 Downing Street where Privy Council appeals are heard will be leading English and New Zealand barristers.

Leading the team of counsel for Mr Mahon is Sir Patrick Neill, Q.C., until recently chairman of the British Press Council, former chairman of the English Bar Council, and a former lecturer in air law at the London School of Economics. With him is an Auckland barrister, Mr W. D. Baragwanath, who was counsel assisting the Mount Erebus Royal Commission; Mr N. Bratza, and Mr R. S. chambers.

Mr Robert Alexander, Q.C., a prominent London silk, with him Mr Lloyd Brown, Q.C., of Auckland, and Mr R. J. McGrane, of Auckland, will appear for Air New Zealand. Mr Brown and Mr McGrane appeared for the airline at the Royal Commission hearing. Mr M. R. Davis, Air New Zealand’s former chief executive, and Captain I. H. Gemmell, who was the airline’s chief pilot at the time of the Mount Erebus disaster, are named as second and third respondents in Mr Mahon’s appeal. Mr Robert Smellie, Q.C., of Auckland, will appear for the Attorney-General, Mr McLay, named as fourth respondent.

With him is Mr David Widdicombe, Q.C., and Mr N. C. Anderson, who appeared for the office of air accident investigations at the Royal Commission. Mr Mahon, who returned to his home town of Christchurch after his retirement from the High Court Bench, will not attend the Privy Council hearing.