Apublic inquiry, also known as atribunal of inquiry,government inquiry, or simplyinquiry, is an officialreview of events or actions ordered by a government body. In manycommon law countries, such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and Canada, such an inquiry differs from aroyal commission in that a public inquiry accepts evidence and conducts its hearings in a more public forum and focuses on a more specific occurrence. Interested members of the public and organisations may make (written) evidential submissions, as is the case with most inquiries, and also listen to oral evidence given by other parties.
Typical events for a public inquiry are those that cause multiple deaths, such as public transport crashes ormass murders.
Advocacy groups andopposition political parties are likely to ask for public inquiries for all manner of issues. The government of the day typically only accedes to a fraction of these requests. The political decision whether to appoint a public inquiry into an event was found to be dependent on several factors. The first is the extent of media coverage of the event; those that receive more media interest are more likely to be inquired. Second, since the appointment of a public inquiry is typically made by government ministers, events that involve allegations of blame on the part of the relevant minister are less likely to be investigated by a public inquiry.[1] Third, a public inquiry generally takes longer to report and costs more on account of its public nature. When a government refuses a public inquiry on some topic, it is usually on at least one of these grounds.
The conclusions of the inquiry are delivered in the form of a written report, given first to the government, and soon after made public. Reports usually make recommendations to improve the quality of government or management of public organisations in the future. A 2016 study found that the reports of public inquiries are not effective in changing public opinion regarding the event in question.[2] Empirical studies do not find support for the claim that appointing a public inquiry leads to a decline in media attention to the inquired issue.[3][4] Public inquiry reports appear to enjoy public trust only when they are critical of a government, and tend to lose credibility when they find no fault on the part of the government.[5]
In France, any major project which requires the compulsory acquisition of private property must, before being approved, be the subject of a public inquiry (usually by theprefect of theregion ordepartment in which the project will take place); the favourable outcome of such an inquiry is adéclaration d'utilité publique, a formal finding that the project will produce public benefit. This procedure was established by the law on expropriation enacted on 7 July 1833,[6] which extended an earlier law enacted in 1810.[7]
A number of historically important public inquiries have taken place in South Africa since the advent offull democracy in 1994. A number of which have looked into national scale events such as systematic human rights abuses duringapartheid or wide scalecorruption.
In the United Kingdom, the term public inquiry, also known as a tribunal of inquiry, refers to either statutory or non-statutory inquiries that have been established either previously by themonarch or by government ministers of theUnited Kingdom,Scottish,Northern Irish andWelsh governments to investigate either specific, controversial events or policy proposals. Non-statutory public inquiries are often used in order to investigate controversial events of national concern, the advantage being that they are more flexible than the statutory inquiry as they do not need to follow the requirements of theInquiries Act 2005, The Inquiry Rules 2006 (UK, excluding Scotland) and The Inquiries (Scotland) Rules 2007.[12] Statutory inquiries can be held as subject-specific public inquiries, however most are now held under the Inquiries Act 2005 which repealed theTribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921.[13] Statutory public inquiries, unlike non-statutory inquiries, have legal powers to compel witnesses.[14] This list excludes Public Local Inquiries (which encompasses Planning Inquiries, Compulsory Purchase Order Inquiries, Listed Building Inquiries etc.)
Only United Kingdom government ministers can establish public inquiries, set their terms of reference, and appoint the chair.[15] The UK Government considers that the main purpose of public inquiries is in “preventing recurrence”.[16] Between 1990 and 2017 UK governments spent at least £630m on public inquiries,[16] with most expensive being theBloody Sunday Inquiry costing £210.6 million.[16][17] Most public inquiries take about two years to complete their work.[16] Of the 69 inquiries launched between 1990 and 2017, the Hammond Inquiry into ministerial conduct relating to theHinduja affair in 2001 was the shortest, taking just 45 days to report its findings;[16] the Inquiry into Hyponatraemia-related Deaths in Northern Ireland was the longest, taking 13 years and three months.[16]
In September 2024 theHouse of Lords Statutory Inquiries Committee called for a change in the way public inquiries are set up and conducted.[18] In their report,Public Inquiries: Enhancing Public Trust, it called for "significant improvements to the inquiry system, to make them more efficient and effective and to avoid the costly and wasteful process of inquiries 'reinventing the wheel'".[18] The report recommended:
In Hong Kong, the Commissions of Inquiry Ordinance was enacted for establishing such a commission. The commission established after the2012 Lamma Island ferry collision produced a report of its findings which they made public; an internal report was kept confidential.[19] In the2019–20 Hong Kong protests, one of the five key demands of the protesters, was establishing another commission for the protests itself.