A public inquiry , also known as a tribunal of inquiry , government inquiry , or simply inquiry , is an official review of events or actions ordered by a government body. In many common law countries, such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and Canada, such an inquiry differs from a royal commission in that a public inquiry accepts evidence and conducts its hearings in a more public forum and focuses on a more specific occurrence. Interested members of the public and organisations may make (written) evidential submissions, as is the case with most inquiries, and also listen to oral evidence given by other parties.
22-635: The Vassall Tribunal was a public inquiry undertaken in 1963 by the British government in the wake of the John Vassall affair. Vassall, a civil servant working in the Admiralty , had been revealed the previous year to be a Soviet spy, and considerable criticism had been levelled at the security arrangements that were in place. The tribunal was established to investigate the claims and determine whether any blame could be laid on officials or ministers. At first,
44-535: A formal finding that the project will produce public benefit. This procedure was established by the law on expropriation enacted on 7 July 1833, which extended an earlier law enacted in 1810. A number of historically important public inquiries have taken place in South Africa since the advent of full democracy in 1994. A number of which have looked into national scale events such as systematic human rights abuses during apartheid or wide scale corruption . In
66-435: A government, and tend to lose credibility when they find no fault on the part of the government. In France, any major project which requires the compulsory acquisition of private property must, before being approved, be the subject of a public inquiry (usually by the prefect of the region or department in which the project will take place); the favourable outcome of such an inquiry is a déclaration d'utilité publique ,
88-606: A proposal by the Prime Minister and the Minister of the Interior . They serve at the government's discretion and can be replaced at any meeting of the Council of Ministers. To uphold the law, they are authorised to undertake a wide variety of actions, such as coordinating police forces, enforcing immigration rules, controlling authorities' finances, as well as suing local collectivities in
110-412: A public inquiry into an event was found to be dependent on several factors. The first is the extent of media coverage of the event; those that receive more media interest are more likely to be inquired. Second, since the appointment of a public inquiry is typically made by government ministers, events that involve allegations of blame on the part of the relevant minister are less likely to be investigated by
132-416: A public inquiry. Third, a public inquiry generally takes longer to report and costs more on account of its public nature. When a government refuses a public inquiry on some topic, it is usually on at least one of these grounds. The conclusions of the inquiry are delivered in the form of a written report, given first to the government, and soon after made public. Reports usually make recommendations to improve
154-515: Is the State's representative in a department or region . Regional prefects are ex officio the departmental prefects of the regional prefecture . Prefects are tasked with upholding the law in the department they serve in, including controlling the actions of local authorities. Prefects are appointed by decree by the President of France when presiding over the government 's Council of Ministers, following
176-625: The Daily Mail and Reg Foster of the Daily Sketch , who refused and were jailed for contempt of court, Lord Radcliffe sentencing Mulholland for six months and Foster for three months. Public inquiry Typical events for a public inquiry are those that cause multiple deaths, such as public transport crashes or mass murders . In addition, in the UK, the Planning Inspectorate , an agency of
198-452: The chef-lieu de région is also the préfet de région , or the prefect of the région . Prefects operate under the Minister of the Interior . Their main missions include: Prefects may issue administrative orders in areas falling within the competency of the national government, including general safety. For instance, they may prohibit the use of certain roads without special tyres in times of snow . The prohibition on smoking or leaving
220-575: The Constitution of France : In the local governments of the Republic, the representative of the State, representing each member of the Government, is in charge of national interests, of administrative checks, and the respect of Law. The exact role and attributions are defined in decrees , most notably decrees of 1964, 1982, 2004, each replacing the preceding one. The prefect of the département containing
242-626: The Commissions of Inquiry Ordinance was enacted for establishing such a commission. The commission established after the 2012 Lamma Island ferry collision produced a report of its findings which they made public; an internal report was kept confidential. In the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests , one of the five key demands of the protesters, was establishing another commission for the protests itself. Prefect (France) A prefect ( French : préfet , plural préfets , both [pʁefɛ] ) in France
SECTION 10
#1732848709038264-490: The Department for Communities and Local Government , routinely holds public inquiries into a range of major and lesser land use developments, including highways and other transport proposals. Advocacy groups and opposition political parties are likely to ask for public inquiries for all manner of issues. The government of the day typically only accedes to a fraction of these requests. The political decision whether to appoint
286-601: The United Kingdom, the term public inquiry, also known as a tribunal of inquiry, refers to either statutory or non-statutory inquiries that have been established either previously by the monarch or by government ministers of the United Kingdom , Scottish , Northern Irish and Welsh governments to investigate either specific, controversial events or policy proposals. Non-statutory public inquiries are often used in order to investigate controversial events of national concern,
308-857: The advantage being that they are more flexible than the statutory inquiry as they do not need to follow the requirements of the Inquiries Act 2005 , The Inquiry Rules 2006 (UK, excluding Scotland) and The Inquiries (Scotland) Rules 2007. Statutory inquiries can be held as subject-specific public inquiries, however most are now held under the Inquiries Act 2005 which repealed the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921 . Statutory public inquiries, unlike non-statutory inquiries, have legal powers to compel witnesses. This list excludes Public Local Inquiries (which encompasses Planning Inquiries, Compulsory Purchase Order Inquiries, Listed Building Inquiries etc.) In Hong Kong,
330-743: The inquiry was to be conducted by three senior civil servants: the Permanent Under-Secretary of the Treasury, the Treasury Solicitor, and the Second Secretary at the Treasury. Before it could begin, letters were discovered in Vassall's possession from Tam Galbraith , who had been Civil Lord of the Admiralty . Vassall had been Galbraith's junior private secretary, but some people suggested that it
352-492: The motor running while filling the fuel tank of a motor vehicle is another example of a matter typically decided by a prefectoral administrative order. On official occasions, prefects wear uniforms . For much of the time after 1800, the departments largely functioned as transmission belts for policies developed in Paris. As such, prefects originally had fairly extensive powers of supervision and control over departmental affairs. This
374-449: The name of the State. The prefects in Lille , Rennes , Bordeaux , Marseille , Lyon and Strasbourg each have additional tasks as heads of their regional defence and security zone ( zone de défense et de sécurité ). In the Paris area, the prefect of police is the head of the local zone. Overseas France has a similar zones system. Subprefects ( sous-préfets ) are responsible for
396-444: The quality of government or management of public organisations in the future. A 2016 study found that the reports of public inquiries are not effective in changing public opinion regarding the event in question. Empirical studies do not find support for the claim that appointing a public inquiry leads to a decline in media attention to the inquired issue. Public inquiry reports appear to enjoy public trust only when they are critical of
418-556: The subdivisions of departments, known as arrondissements , when the arrondissement is not that of the prefecture. The office of a prefect is known as a prefecture and that of a subprefect a subprefecture . From 1982 to 1988, under the Socialist administration of President François Mitterrand , prefects were called commissaires de la République (the Republic's commissioners) and subprefects commissaires adjoints de la République (the Republic's deputy commissioners). The post of prefect
440-620: The verdict was not universally accepted. Eventually, the Prime Minister was compelled to open a wider inquiry, conducted by three jurists: the Viscount Radcliffe , Mr Justice Barry , and Milner Holland QC. The inquiry determined that Vassall had not been helped or favoured by any of his seniors. The inquiry was controversial in some quarters for requiring journalists to reveal the sources that they claimed for their allegations and for having prosecuted two journalists, Brendan Mulholland of
462-412: Was first created on 17 February 1800 by then- First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte . Their roles were initially similar to those of the pre-revolutionary intendants . Prefects were initially charged with supervising local governments in their department, ensuring that taxes flowed to Paris and supervising conscription at the local level. Currently, the main role of the prefect is defined in article 72 of
SECTION 20
#1732848709038484-445: Was odd that a minister would communicate by post with an official of his own department, and there was considerable speculation of impropriety in the press. Given Vassall's homosexuality, which had become known, it began to be put around that he and Galbraith were involved with each other and that Galbraith might have shielded him from discovery. The committee of civil servants investigated the correspondence and declared it innocent, but
#37962