Railway and Canal Traffic Act 1888

5 Sittings of Commissioners

(1) Subject to the provisions of this Act, and to general rules under this Act, the Commissioners may hold sittings in any part of the United Kingdom, in such place or places as may be most convenient for the determination of proceedings before them.

(2) The central office of the Commissioners shall be in London, and the Commissioners when holding a public sitting in London shall hold the same at the Royal Courts of Justice, or at such other place as the Lord Chancellor may from time to time appoint.

(3) Not less than three Commissioners shall attend at the hearing of any case, and the ex officio Commissioner shall preside, and his opinion upon any question which in the opinion of the Commissioners is a question of law shall prevail.

(4) Save as aforesaid, section twenty-seven of the [36 & 37 Vict. c. 48.] Regulation of Railways Act, 1873, shall apply, and any act may be done by any two Commissioners.

(5) Every judge who may with his consent be assigned to hold the office of ex officio Commissioner shall attend to hear any cases before the Commission, which as ex officio Commissioner he is required to hear, when and as soon as the cases are ready to be heard, or as soon thereafter as reasonably may be; and any such judge shall be required to perform any of the other duties of a judge of a superior court only when his attendance on the Commission is not required.

(6) If and when any judge who may be assigned to hold the office of ex officio Commissioner is temporarily unable to attend, the Lord Chancellor in England, the Lord President of the Court of Session in Scotland, and the Lord Chancellor in Ireland, may respectively nominate any judge of a superior court to sit as ex officio Commissioner in place of the judge who is so temporarily unable to attend as aforesaid, and the judge so nominated shall for the purpose of any case which he may hear be an ex officio Commissioner.

(7) If the President of the Board of Trade is satisfied either of the inability of an appointed Commissioner to attend at the hearing of any case, or of there being a vacancy in the office, and in either case of the necessity of a speedy hearing of the case, he may appoint a temporary Commissioner to hear such case, and such Commissioner, for all purposes connected with such case, shall, until the final determination thereof, have the same jurisdiction and powers as if he were an appointed Commissioner. A temporary Commissioner shall be paid such sum by the Commissioner so unable to sit, or, if the office is vacant, out of the salary of the office, as the President of the Board of Trade may assign.