Supplementary Section 37: Immunity from suit
89.This section provides immunity for the inquiry panel, the inquiry’s legal advisers and assessors, and other people engaged to assist it, from any civil action for anything done or said in the course of carrying out their duty to the inquiry. Subsection (1) will change the current practice whereby sponsor Departments usually have to provide indemnities to the inquiry, which can cause delays at the beginning of an inquiry. The lack of such protection was identified as an undesirable omission in the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921 in the report of the Royal Commission on Tribunals of Inquiry in 1966 (the “Salmon Report”).
90.This section also provides that witness statements and inquiry reports will be covered by the same privilege, for the purposes of defamation law, as proceedings before a court. This privilege was already afforded to witnesses under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921 but not under some subject-specific legislation.