Saturday, March 24, 2012

AUSTRALIA - Natural Justice - some points

OFF THE WIRE
Hi everyone ... these are simple public domain definitions and brief comments I'ce copied and put together for info.

Natural Justice Definition:

Basic or fundamental judicial rights extended to a person with rights at issue.

Related Terms: Audi Alteram PartemNemo Judex In Parte SuaAdministrative Law
A word used to refer to situations whereaudi alteram partem (the right to be heard) and nemo judex in parte sua(no person may judge their own case) apply.
The principles of natural justice were derived from the Romans who believed that some legal principles were "natural" or self-evident and did not require a statutory basis.
These two basic legal safeguards govern all decisions by judges or government officials when they takequasi-judicial or judicial decisions.

REFERENCES:
  • Duhaime, Lloyd, Duhaime's Legal Dictionary
  • Duhaime, Lloyd, Duhaime's Legal Citations & Abbreviations
  • Guide To Legal Citations



Audi Alteram Partem Definition:

Latin; literally 'hear the other side'.

Related Terms: Nemo Judex In Parte SuaNatural JusticeHearing
The maxim means, in law, that no person shall be condemned, punished or have any property or legal right compromised by a court of law without having heard that person.
In an ancient case (1722), The King v Chancellor, University of Cambridge, Justice Eyre remarked:
"The laws of God and man both have given the party an opportunity to make his defence, if he has any.... Even God himself did not pass sentence upon Adam before he was called upon to make his defence."
Justice Bayley wrote, in Chapel v Child:
"I know of no case in which you are to have a judicial proceeding, by which a man is to be deprived of any part of his property, without having an opportunity of being heard."
A principle of natural justice which prohibits a judicial decision which impacts upon individual rights without giving all parties in the dispute a right to be heard.

Habeas corpus was an early expression of the audi alteram partem principle.

In more recent years, it has been extended to include the right to receive notice of a hearing and to be given an opportunity to be represented or heard at that hearing.

The expression received this endorsement from the US Supreme Court (Caritativo):
"Audi alteram partem - hear the other side! - a demand made insistently through the centuries, is now a command, spoken with the voice of the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, against state governments, and every branch of them - executive, legislative, and judicial - whenever any individual, however lowly and unfortunate, asserts a legal claim.

"It is beside the point that the claim may turn out not to be meritorious. It is beside the point that delay in the enforcement of the law may be entailed ...

"The right to be heard somehow by someone before a claim is denied, particularly if life hangs in the balance, is far greater in importance to society, in the light of the said history of its denial, than inconvenience in the execution of the law. If this is true when mere property interests are at stake ... how much more so when the difference is between life and death?"

REFERENCES:
  • Caritativo v People of State of California 357 US 549 (1958)
  • Chapel v Child 2 Cr. & J. 579 (1832)
  • The King v Chancellor of Cambridge University, 1 Str. 557, at page 567 ()


Nemo Judex In Parte Sua Definition:

Latin: no person can judge a case in which he or she is party or in which he/she has an interest.

Related Terms: Audi Alteram PartemNatural JusticeConflict of Interest
Latin, and a fundamental principle ofnatural justice which states that no person can judge a case in which he or she is party or in which he/she has an interest.

Also known as:
  • nemo judex in sua causa; or
  • nemo debet esse judex in propria causa.
The maxim crystalized in British-tradition common law in the case Frome United Breweries Co. v Bath, in which British's highest legal officer, called the "Lord Chancellor" (LC), made a decision favourable to a canal company.
At the time, unbeknownst to the parties to the litigation, the LC was a shareholder in the canal company and had not told the litigants. The LC's decision was set aside because of the nemo judex maxim.

"The maxim that no man is to be judge in his own case should be held sacred. And that is not to be confined to a cause in which he is a party, but applies to a cause in which he has an interest....

"This will be a lesson to all ... tribunals to take care, not only that in their decrees they are not influenced by their personal interests, but to avoid the appearance of labouring under such an influence."


In Canada, the Supreme Court had occasion to reflect on the maxim in Brosseau v Alberta Securities Commission, Justice l'Heureux-DubĂ©:

"The maxim nemo judex in causa sua debet esse underlies the doctrine of reasonable apprehension of bias.

"It translates into the principle that no one ought to be a judge in his own cause. In this case, it is contended that the Chairman, in acting as both investigator and adjudicator in the same case, created a reasonable apprehension of bias.

"As a general principle, this is not permitted in law because the taint of bias would destroy the integrity of proceedings conducted in such a manner."

See also the related legal definition of recusation.

One early case was Wright v Crump in which the Mayor of Hereford, England, circa 1790,  claimed title to a local house. So he arranged with a friend to lease the real estate to him and then that friend brought a legal action for ejectment of the occupants before, well, Lord Mayor himself, who found for the claimant. The occupants appealed the decision to the Court of King's Bench and the Mayor was sentenced to a term of imprisonment.

REFERENCES:

  • Brosseau v Alberta Securities Commission [1989] 1 SCR 301
  • Frome United Breweries Co. v Bath, [1926] AC 586
  • Wright v Crump, 2 Ld. Raym. 766; also at 92 E.R. 12 (1790). Cited in Franklin F. Heard's book, Curiosities of the Law Reporters (Boston: W.S. Bartlett, 1871), at page 25.


Habeas Corpus Definition:

Latin: a court petition which orders that a person being detained be produced before a judge for a hearing to decide whether the detention is lawful.

Related Terms: CertiorariProhibitionMandamusQuo Warranto
A challenge made by a prisoner in regards to the legality of his or herdetention.
While traditionally a criminal law remedy, it has been used in immigration, child custody, mental health and, more recently, in national or homeland security.

The predominant feature of martial law is the suspension of habeas corpus, effectively denying persons detained from having their detention challenged quickly and by an independent court or judge.

¶5(4) of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights states:
"Everyone who is deprived of his liberty by arrest or detention shall be entitled to take proceedings by which the lawfulness of his detention shall be decided speedily by a court and his release ordered if the detention is not lawful. "

¶10 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is as follows:
"Everyone has the right on arrest or detention to be informed promptly of the reasons therefor; to retain and instruct counsel without delay and to be informed of that right; and to have the validity of the detention determined by way of habeas corpus and to be released if the detention is not lawful."

A distinctive feature of martial law is the suspension of this remedy.

¶9 of the US Constitution reads:
"The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it."

Habeas corpus was one of the concessions the British Monarch made in the Magna Carta and has stood as a basic individual right against arbitrary arrest and imprisonment.
In 1679, the British Parliament sought to address the abuse of delay in having a habeas corpusclaim brought before a judge, thereby defeating the purpose of it in any event. The preamble of the Habeas Corpus Act reads:

"Whereas great delays have been used by sheriffs, gaolers and other officers, to whose custody, any of the King's subjects have been committed for criminal or supposed criminal matters, in making returns of writs of habeas corpus to them directed, by standing out an alias and pluries habeas corpus, and sometimes more, and by other shifts to avoid their yielding obedience to such writs, contrary to their duty and the known laws of the land, whereby many of the King's subjects have been and hereafter may be long detained in prison, in such cases where by law they are bailable, to their great charges and vexation."

References:
  • The 1679 Habeas Corpus Act is published atfordham.edu/halsall/mod/1679habeascorp.html
  • The European Convention on Human Rights is atconventions.coe.int/treaty/en/Treaties/Html/005.htm