A Bill of Rights case

Press, 22 November 1989, Page 20

A Bill of Rights case

Section 1 of the Bill of Rights 1688 says "the pretended power of suspending the laws, ,or the execution of law by rfegall authority without the of Parlyment is illegal.” Successive Ombudsmen Have found it unacceptable that departments should act to negate the law of Parliament, *dnd worse still to find cases where a department knows it is doing something which is contrary to law. The following dase was an example of this. J * The complainant, a partner in a" firm of Registered Surveyors, wished to lodge survey plans accompanied by prints of the relevant title plan pursuant to Regulation 36 (2) of the Survey Regulations 1972. This provision

was made to allow the release of survey information pending completion of local authority approvals and statutory endorsements on the original plans. The difficulty arose when the chief surveyor of the district issued a memorandum advising all practising surveyors that ... in order to improve production in plan examination ... section 36 (2) of the Survey Regulations will no longer be effective ... plans will “need to be lodged with both title and survey plan

complete ...” In the complainant’s opinion the regulations

gave the chief surveyor no such discretion.

In putting the complaint ta the Director-General of Lands, I expressed my view that the regulations were made with the author-, ity of Parliament, and remained in force. They could only be set aside with the leave of Parliament and that what the chief surveyor had done was contrary to law.

The department acknowledged that my statement of the pqsition could not be disputed, but justified the action on the grounds that double handling of documents in the office was avoided. I sustained the complaint and the instruction was withdrawn. — John Robertson, ' Chief Ombudsman.

Ombudsman’s casebook