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5. Both the lay and Judicial members of the Commission should be nominated for a period of not less than three years, and there should be power for the Lord Chancellor to dismiss a lay member of the Commission for inability or misbehaviour.
6. The Commission should be a Court of Record (as was the Railway and Canal Commission), so that it has the necessary powers to enforce its orders, e.g., power to commit for contempt. It should have power to administer oaths, to grant injunctions, impose fines, &c.
7. The Commissioners should have equal authority amongst themselves except that the opinion of the Judicial members should, as in the case of the Railway and Canal Commission, prevail on a point of law. Similarly the decision of the Commission should be final on matters of fact and of locus standi, but there should be a right of appeal on a point of law to the Court of Appeal.
8. The practice and procedure before the Commission ought to be determined by rules made by the Lord Chancellor, who would consult (informally) the President of the Board of Trade, Lord President of the Court of Session, and the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland.
9. The main forum of operations for the new Commission would no doubt be in London, and it may be desirable that it should sit at the Royal Courts of Justice. It might be useful, however, to take power for the Commission to sit anywhere in England or Wales, and it should have power to sit in Scotland and Northern Ireland in which case the Scots or Northern Irish Judge would preside.
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2.70