Chapter 16 - Committees
Power to take evidence in private
Most committees are empowered to hear evidence in public or in private.
It is open to a committee to decide not to pursue a matter because it would be
contrary to the public interest for reasons including possible prejudice to
court proceedings, national security or individual privacy. In making such
decisions, however, most committees have an option not in practice available to
the Senate itself, and that is the power to take evidence in camera.
By hearing evidence in private and agreeing to orders forbidding
publication of the evidence, a committee may inform itself fully on an issue
and at the same time minimise any risk arising from the publication of
evidence. A committee may decide
to publish the in camera evidence at a later date when the risk of harm has
passed, or may decide on partial publication in order to balance competing
concerns. For further material on the taking of evidence in camera and other
measures to protect witnesses, see Chapter 17, Witnesses, under Protection of
Witnesses: (b) procedural protection. The report of the Senate Standing
Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, Sexual Harassment in the
Australian Defence Force: Facing the Future Together (August 1994, PP
147/1994), contains a useful discussion of some of the issues involved in
taking evidence in camera and releasing it at a later date, particularly in the
context of individual privacy and the right to natural justice of an individual
against whom allegations are made (Annex 1, Evidence, pp 327-30).
Committees
considering estimates must take all their evidence in public. Documents
submitted to a committee considering estimates may not be withheld from
publication; nor may evidence be taken in camera. (See above, under Estimates
committees.) Matters which arise during the consideration of estimates may be
the subject of reference to a legislative and general purpose standing
committee in possession of the full range of committee powers. (See Supplement)
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