CONSTITUTION WRONG

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 29, 4 February 1927, Page 6

CONSTITUTION WRONG

OMNIBUS APPEAL BOARD

NOT A JUDICIAL BODY

A question was asked by Councillor H. D. Bennett at last evening's meeting of the City Council as to the relation between the council, as the licensing authority, and the council's representative upon the Motor Omnibus Appeal Body: did the representative vote in accord with the feeling of the council as a whole or did he vote in accord with his own opinions? Councillor Luckie, chairman of tho Bylaws Committee, which deals with applications for omnibus permits, said that he regretted that the representative, Councillor Huggiiis, was not present, but the position, he believed, could not be other than that the council's representative should vote in accordance with the evidence then before him, and not in - accord with any pre-con-ceived idea. As a matter of fact two of the votes upon the board were tied up, for one member represented the proprietors of existing services, and another the Eailway Department; the proprietors of existing services would naturally vote against the establishment of new services likely to damage their own business, and the Eailway Board had already made it clear that it did not want any buses ai all upon the Hutt road. The two other representatives were from the licensing authority and from local bodies whose areas were served by buses, but which did not operate machines of their own, with the Judge of the Arbitration Court as president. Several members of the council expressed the opinion that the constitution of the board, if it was to be regarded as a judicial body, was altogether wrong, and that it required thorough revision.

Councillor Luckie, in reply, said that it certainly was difficult to look upon the board as a judicial body, but perhaps it should be regarded from the point of view that the members were there as partisans, or advocates, and not in a judicial capacity at all. The Mayor remarked that unless an amendment to the Act were obtained the council could talk till Domesday without result, but he did agree that the constitution was scarcely a judicial one; as had been suggested, the members were rather in the position of advocates, with the.Judge in the centre to decide.

A special meeting of the council is to be held on Friday afternoon to consider two further applications for bus licenses.