Regulation 33 Determination of appeals by hearing or local inquiryI1
Northern Ireland
This regulation applies where an appeal is to be determined by hearing or by local inquiry.
Within 35 days of receiving notice that the appeal is to be so determined, the appellant and the Department must serve on the appointed person a statement containing full particulars of his or its case and copies of any documents he or it wishes to rely on at the hearing or local inquiry.
After receiving the statements and documents in paragraph (2), the appointed person shall send copies of them to the other participants in the appeal.
The appointed person shall—
give the participants in the appeal 35 days notice of the date, time and place fixed for the hearing or local inquiry and the name of the person appointed to conduct the hearing or local inquiry (or, as applicable, to determine the appeal); and
give such notice as he thinks fit to inform the public not less than 21 days before the date fixed for the hearing or local inquiry.
The appointed person may vary the time or place for the hearing or local inquiry and must give such notice of the variation as he thinks fit.
If an interested party wishes to be heard at the hearing or local inquiry he must notify the appointed person within 28 days of being sent the appellant’s and the Department’s statements under paragraph (3).
Where an interested party has so notified the appointed person, the appointed person may require him to submit a statement containing the particulars of his case and copies of any documents he wishes to refer to (except documents which the appellant or the Department served under paragraph (2)).
The appointed person must send copies of any statements and documents received under paragraph (7) to the appellant and to the Department.
The appointed person may require any person who has provided him with a statement under paragraph (2) or (7) to provide him with any further information he specifies in relation to the statement, and must send a copy of the further information to each of the other participants in the appeal.
Before a hearing or local inquiry takes place, the appointed person shall make all of the documents submitted available for inspection by any person who so requests.
The participants in the appeal are entitled to be heard at a hearing or local inquiry.
Any participant in the appeal who proposes to give evidence at an inquiry by reading a witness statement must send a copy of the witness statement, and a written summary of it, to the appointed person not less than 21 days before the date fixed for the inquiry, and the appointed person must send copies of the witness statement and summary to the other participants in the appeal.
After the conclusion of the hearing or local inquiry, the person appointed to conduct the hearing or local inquiry must, unless he has been appointed to determine the appeal, make a report to the appointed person which must include—
his conclusions; and
his recommendations or his reasons for not making any recommendations.
If the appointed person is minded to disagree with the recommendation made in the report because he—
differs from the person making the report on any matter of fact mentioned in, or appearing to him to be material to, a conclusion reached by that person; or
takes into consideration new evidence or a new matter of fact,
he must not come to a decision without first giving every person who appeared at the hearing or local inquiry an opportunity to make representations within a reasonable time specified by him.
The appointed person shall notify the participants in the appeal of his decision, the reasons for it and, where a report has been made in accordance with paragraph (13), a copy of that report.