The High Court has rejected an attempt by developer Owen O’Callaghan and six other applicants to require the planning tribunal to disclose any proposed findings concerning them before finalising its report.
The applicants sought orders compelling the Tribunal of Inquiry into Certain Planning Matters and Payments to provide draft findings and give them an opportunity to respond. They argued that the scale and complexity of the tribunal’s work made it impossible to identify every potential adverse conclusion without advance notice.
The proceedings arose after the tribunal completed more than 900 days of public hearings. The applicants included witnesses and companies connected with evidence concerning Quarryvale and other matters examined by the inquiry. Some had provided extensive statements and discovery, including tens of thousands of documents.
Mr Justice O’Neill held that the central question was whether natural and constitutional justice required disclosure of provisional findings before the tribunal reached its final conclusions.
The court found that it did not. The applicants had received relevant evidence, had access to hearing transcripts, had been notified when evidence potentially affecting them arose, had opportunities to cross-examine witnesses and had been invited to make written submissions.
The judge distinguished this public tribunal process from private or company-law inquiries where evidence may initially be gathered behind closed doors and draft criticisms are circulated because affected people otherwise have no comparable opportunity to challenge the material.
Here, he found that the applicants had already received the full protections associated with fair procedures. The fact that reviewing the large volume of evidence was burdensome did not create a constitutional entitlement to draft findings.
The court said the tribunal had reached the stage where, after considering submissions, it had to be allowed to assess the evidence and make its own findings. Requiring another round of submissions on provisional conclusions would likely duplicate work and unnecessarily prolong the inquiry.
The judicial review reliefs were therefore refused.