TRANSPORT APPEALS

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 60, 8 September 1933, Page 6

TRANSPORT APPEALS

CASES MAY BE KEYIEWED

NEW REGULATIONS

Machinery for the rehearing of appeals by the Transport Appeal Board is provided in regulations which were published in the Gazette last evening. The regulations, which have been issued under the Transport Licensing Act, 1931, give to those with the right of appeal authority to apply for a rehearing on certain denned grounds, the chief of which is that more evidence has become available.

Explaining ' the regulations, the Minister of Transport (the Et. Hon. J. G. Coates) said that they were decided upon as the outcome of representations made by local bodies and others throughout the North Island that some of the recent decisions of the Transport Appeal Board had had exceedingly farreaching effects, and would result in many concerns being forced off ■ the roads. These firms claimed that they were not in a position to bring complete evidence at the sittings to provo the hardship to themselves and the travelling public served, and from the representations that had been made by residents in the areas concerned, there was ground to support the request for further opportunities of reviewing the whole of the circumstances.

The regulations provided that any person or body having the right of appeal under the Act might apply for a rehearing within two months of the passing .of the regulations, and in the case of any other appeal within twenty-one days after the date of- any determination of the Transport Appeal Board, on tho grounds mainly that further evidence had become available, or that it was oquitablo and proper that the determination should be considered in whole or in part. If tho Transport Appeal Board were satisfied that a rehearing was justified in tho circumstances, it was empowered to grant a rehearing upon such terms as it thought fit, and the operator would bo allowed to carry on tho services in respect of those matters upon which the rehearing had been granted.

"The Government has given the matter very careful consideration," concluded Mr. Coates,' "and while- it has no desire to prolong unduly proceedings under the Act, with the consequential additional expense to all parties concerned, it feels that with an Act of this kind, where precedents are singularly lacking, if there is an impression abroad that justice is not being done it is preferable to provide reasonable opportunities for every aspect to be thoroughly weighed. Tho statute provides that the decisions of the Transport Appeal Board shall be final, and the Government considers that it is legitimately exercising its functions and powers in providing for rehearings under the conditions laid iown.,'i - ■