Public hearing

“ The requirement that the Commission 'hold public hearings, at which opportunity shall be given to any interested party to be heard and following which the Commission shall render a report' to the court is not provided without a purpose and is not to be ignored by persons with claims or objections to be heard. ”

“ They are at once the servants and scapegoats of their parties. It is these well-established privileges and responsibilities of theirs which make their utterances considered worth hearing,—nay, necessary to be heard and pondered. Their public speeches are their parties’ platforms. What the leader promises his party stands ready to do, should it be intrusted with office. ”

“ Any petition to become a party by filing a motion to intervene in the manner provided G.S. in In addition, any 1A-1, Rule 24. person interested in a contested case may intervene and participate in that proceeding to the extent deemed appropriate by the hearing officer. (e) All hearings under this Chapter shall be open to the public. Hearings shall be conducted an impartial in manner. Hearings be shall conducted according to the procedures out set in this Article except to the extent and the particulars that in specific hearing procedures and time standards are governed by another statute. ”

“ Each party shall have the privilege of cross examining witnesses. The Superintendent of Public Instruction or the hearing officer appointed by him shall have the power to subpoena witnesses, compel their attendance, and require the production of evidence relating to any relevant matter under this Act. ”

“ Hearings have indeed often become a spectacle, [4] some of the reasons being succinctly stated by the experienced Chairman of the Senate Committee on Government Operations, and head of the Permanent Committee on Investigations, Senator McClellan of Arkansas:
'First let me say that the primary purpose and actually the only legitimate purpose for such hearings must be a legislative purpose, but out of that also flows the opportunity to disseminate information f great value and advantage to the public. ”

“ Open congressional hearings do not absolutely assure fair play, but they do represent the best practical means this country has so far devised for assuring the public’s right to know about the running of its government. ”

“ Most emphatically, sir, do I conceive that at the present day the people of the United States have a peculiar right to come and ask of this body a respectful hearing of their petitions, and a respectful hearing on this very subject. Sir, it is no mere abstraction. It is an element of political power in the formation of our constitution ”

“ It is well for you to be assured that while, by this choice of plain English for the embodying of your thoughts, you secure the ears of ordinary people, you will at the same time please the most highly educated and refined. The words that have won the applause of a political meeting are equally successful in securing a hearing in Congress, provided that the thoughts expressed and the manner of their expression be adapted to the changed audience. ”

“ The purely informative type of story is the common form for reporting meetings, investigations, and hearings. The parts of the proceedings that are of general interest and significance make up the contents of such stories (cf. “State Legislature,” p. 116, and “Meeting of Safety Council,” p. 120) . In meetings of some importance are to be found humorous or pathetic phases that may be brought out legitimately to heighten the interest and to emphasize the significance of the proceedings (cf. “Hearing on Proposed Ordinance,” p. 113, and “Testimony in Investigation,” p. 110) . ”

“ Whenever the legislative or executive authority, or lawful agent of any State in controversy with another, shall present a petition to Congress, stating the matter in question, and praying for a hearing, notice thereof shall be given by order of Congress to the legislative or executive authority of the other State in controversy, and a day assigned for the appearance of the parties by their lawful agents, who shall then be directed to appoint, by joint consent, commissioners or judges to constitute a court for hearing and determining the matter in question ”

“ Second, §§ 21 (a) and (e) require that hearings before security hearing boards shall be 'orderly' and that 'reasonable restrictions still be imposed as to relevancy, competency, and materiality of matters considered.' The material set forth in the margin, taken from the transcript, and illustrative rather than exhaustive, shows that these indispensable indicia of a meaningful hearing were not observed. ”

“ A full hearing is one in which ample opportunity is afforded to all parties to make, by evidence and argument, a showing fairly adequate to establish the propriety or impropriety, from the standpoint of justice and law, of the step asked to be taken. The Commission recognized, and observed, these essentials of a full hearing. ”

“ Our policy is to protect the employee so we always have closed hearings. There was no need to produce the documents in question. The hearing panel was confident that they were not needed."
"I don't care about how your hearing panel or how your policy goes. I'm asking about an excellent teacher who has served our university for nearly a quarter of a century. If she did what you have accused her of .... good God, man! Five out of thousands—what difference could that make? You've made yourself look silly." ”

“ Therefore, when a small group of men approach Congress in order to induce the committee concerned to concur in certain legislation, nobody knows the ramifications of the interests which those men represent; there seems no frank and open action of public opinion in public counsel, but every man is suspected of representing some other man and it is not known where his connections begin or end. ”

“ If a panel reviews a record on post-audit and reaches the conclusion that the determination made below does not fully recognize that it is of 'vital importance' as set forth in Executive Order 9835 'that persons employed in the Federal service be of complete and unswerving Loyalty to the United States,' then the panel may call up the case for a hearing, and after such hearing may affirm or reverse the original determination or decision. ”

“ Every man, whether inhabitant or foreigner, free or not free, shall have liberty to come to any public Court, Council, or Town Meeting, and either by speech or writing to move any lawful, seasonable, and material question, or to present any necessary motion, complaint, petition, bill, or information, whereof that meeting hath proper cognizance, so it be done in convenient time, due order, and respective manner. ”

“ Due process of law is afforded where there is opportunity to be heard before the body which is to make the assessment, and the legislature of a state may provide that such hearing shall be conclusive so far as the Federal Constitution is concerned. ”

“ All-male arbitration committees "There’s a whole literature on the core components of a fair hearing and what that means and it includes an impartial decision maker. If the government wants to take something away from you, then they owe you some fair hearing of some sort. ”

“ There is no longer the same danger that the discussion of a private bill or of a motion to adjourn, or an interminable series of questions, will unexpectedly cut a great piece out of the hours when the House is most crowded, and the leading men are waiting to debate a great public measure. ”

“ Indeed it is not usual for the Committees to open their sittings often to those who desire to be heard with regard to pending questions; and no one can demand a hearing as of right. On the contrary, they are privileged and accustomed to hold their sessions in absolute secrecy. ”

“ For speeches made in Parliament by a member to the prejudice of any other person, or hazardous to the public peace, that member enjoys complete impunity. For every paper signed by the speaker by order of the House, though to the last degree calumnious, or even if it brought personal suffering upon individuals, the speaker cannot be arraigned in a court of justice. ”

“ Any citizen present is free to express any criticism or ask any question. No better method of checking the conduct of public officers has ever been discovered than this system of report in open meeting. ”

“ In law, the judge and jury hold the deciding balance of power. In public opinion, the public relations counsel is judge and jury because through his pleading of a case the public is likely to accede to his opinion and judgment. Therefore, the public relations counsel must maintain an intense scrutiny of his actions, avoiding the propagation of unsocial or otherwise harmful movements or ideas. ”

“ The people ought to be taught to look to Parliament with a confident expectation that their complaints would be heard, and protection afforded to them. When no attention was paid to the calls of the people for relief, when their petitions were rejected, and their sufferings aggravated, was it wonderful that at last public discontents should assume a formidable aspect? ”

“ The main question for our decision is, whether a faithful report in a public newspaper of a debate in either house of parliament, containing matter disparaging to the character of an individual, as having been spoken in the course of the debate, is actionable at the suit of the party whose character has thus been called in question. ”

“ Except by the part they may take as jurymen in the administration of justice, the mass of the population have very little opportunity of sharing personally in the conduct of the general affairs of the community. Reading newspapers, and perhaps writing to them, public meetings, and solicitations of different sorts addressed to the political authorities, are the extent of the participation of private citizens in general politics during the interval between one Parliamentary election and another. ”

“ In addition to a full allowance of vacation oratory, and the unremitted current of the newspaper press, the monthlies have given forth a number of reasoned articles by cabinet ministers and by men of ministerial rank in the opposition. The whole tendency of our time is, to supersede parliamentary discussion by more direct appeals to the mind of the public. ”

“ But what are we to think of a procedure under which an official is to be tried, not in a court by a jury of his peers and upon the testimony of witnesses sworn to tell the truth, but in the newspapers, on the street corners, and at political meetings? ”

“ There is indeed this common bond that all alike are instruments in a governmental process which according to the accepted classification is legislative, not judicial. * * * Whatever the appropriate label, the kind of order that emerges from a hearing before a body with power to ordain is one that impinges upon legal rights in a very different way from the report of a commission which merely investigates and advises. The traditionary forms of hearing appropriate to the one body are unknown to the other. ”

“ Hence it is frequently described as a proceeding of a quasi judicial character. The requirement of a 'full hearing' has obvious reference to the tradition of judicial proceedings in which evidence is received and weighed by the trier of the facts. The 'hearing' is designed to afford the safeguard that the one who decides shall be bound in good conscience to consider the evidence, to be guided by that alone, and to reach his conclusion uninfluenced by extraneous considerations which in other fields might have play in determining purely executive action. ”

“ In any event, even if it is clear that the state trier of fact utilized the proper standard, a hearing is sometimes required if his decision presents a situation in which the 'so-called facts and their constitutional significance (are) so blended that they cannot be severed in consideration.' Rogers v. ”

“ Parliaments are losing much of their importance, because the real deliberation is being transferred from them to the press and the general organs of discussion by which the great questions are virtually decided, parliamentary speeches being little more than reproductions of arguments already used outside the House, and parliamentary divisions little more than registrations of public opinion. ”

“ The necessity for a hearing will depend greatly upon the circumstances surrounding the particular proposed action and upon the likelihood that a hearing will be more effective than other methods in developing relevant information and an understanding of the proposed action. The precise procedural steps to be adopted are better left to the agency, which should be in a better position than the court to determine whether solution of the problems faced with respect to a specific major federal action can better be achieved through a hearing or by informal acceptance of relevant data. ”

“ It expresses characteristically and satisfactorily the general view of a very large body of American citizens who are profoundly interested in public affairs, but who are not dragged at the wheels of party. They are, in fact, the tribunal to which all party orators appeal. When members of Congress and party orators speak of appealing to the country and invoking the verdict of the people, they do not mean people who vote according to the label of the package, but according to its contents. ”

“ In the course of a long and arduous public service, especially during the last eleven years in which I have held a seat in the Senate, from the same ardor and enthusiasm of character, I have no doubt, in the heat of debate, and in an honest endeavor to maintain my opinions against adverse opinions alike honestly entertained, as to the best course to be adopted for the public welfare, I may have often inadvertently and unintentionally, in moments of excited debate, made use of language that has been offensive, and susceptible of injurious interpretation towards my brother Senators. ”