In relation to the points raised by the Deputies, may I say this: there is a controversy in England and elsewhere as to who should be commissioners, and under the English Act it is legally qualified personnel who are commissioners. It has been debated as to whether or not this is too restrictive and whether an expert in another discipline, for example, sociology or social science, should not also be commissioners. There are arguments for and against this. In Australia—in fact, this wording is taken very closely from the Australian statute—it is provided that the commission should consist of certain people, and their qualifications are listed, and then it says :
A person who, in the opinion of the Governor General, is by reason of his special qualifications, training, or experience, suitable for appointment to the commission.
I appreciate the point being made that these are very wide terms, but when you realise what the commissioners are going to do, you will see it is very important that the commission would have available the assistance of experience in fields other than law. The presence of a person on the commission with qualifications other than legal ones would depend to a considerable extent on the availability of the right person, but if there was not a person available who could be appointed as a commissioner, I am sure there must be people available who could be appointed on a part-time or consultative basis from the social sciences. What is envisaged here is not to rule out the possibility of non-legal qualified people being commissioners. The commissioners have to produce reports. They are responsible for draft legislation that may be included in the reports, so that it will not be every expert in social science that will be suitable to be a commissioner, but a lot of experts who may not have any legal experience could well be suitable to act in an advisory capacity to the commission. Therefore in answer to the question raised by Deputy Andrews, what is envisaged by this is to leave open the possibility of appointing non-legal experts to the commission and, in particular, social scientists.
In relation to the amendment, I would not favour the limitation on the discretion which is being suggested. What is being suggested is that if a non-lawyer is to be appointed, this is to be on the advice of the other members of the commission. I would ask Deputies to consider this: The Government have available to them the names of many persons with qualifications practising social science who may be suitable. They get this knowledge from many sources, through Government Departments, through work done by non-legal people on commissions, through examinations which Departments do on the publications of outside experts.
This knowledge is available to the Government, and the Government are in a position to know what outside experts would be suitable people for the commission. No matter how legally qualified the other members of the commission would be, it is not possible to see how they would have the same knowledge of outside experts as that which would be available to the Government. The effect of this amendment would be to restrict the area of choice. It will be difficult to get the right person, who will be qualified in social science, who will be a non-legal expert and who will be available to assist the commission. If this cannot be done, I would hope that assistance of this sort would be got by means of membership of the staff of the commission on a consultative basis or otherwise.