has just as much right to know what goes on inside a BIU-Grotto Bay labour dispute board as it has a right to know what goes on inside Parliament or the Supreme Court. These hearings are, after all, quasi-courts.

When American arbitrator Arnold Zack banned the Press from the arbitration into the BIU-Grotto Bay dispute, he banned the public. Mr. Zack and his board are supposedly doing the public's business but the public will never know whether the board is doing its business in a fair and proper way or not because of the ban.

Labour Minister the Hon. Irving Pearman is quoted as saying that the Act creating the Trade Disputes Board gives the chairman the right to run his hearing the way he wants and to make his own rules. If that is the case, then the Act is wrong and it is not in the public interest.

We think BIU President Mr. Ottiwell Simmons was quite correct in this instance to challenge The Royal Gazette to fight for freedom of the Press. We want to fight for the public's freedoms too. Mr. Simmons also has a right to say that he was "not altogether happy'' about the ban decision.

It seems to us that more and more of the public's freeedom is being whittled away by high-handed and unnecessary behaviour. As usual, the current bad behaviour is cloaked as being "in the public interest''. It is not in the public interest at all but it probably is in the interest of making things easier for the panel hearing the dispute. If there is no-one there to listen to and to report on the secret doings, then the panel can do as it pleases, good or bad, right or wrong.

Mr. Zack tries to make the ban sound good by saying that it is "protecting private individuals who testify''. That is a nonsense because the same could be said about court witnesses. It is not said because of the need for "justice to be seen to be done'' is paramount. What will happen to Mr. Zack and his panel now is that they will be faced by witnesses who have the protection of secrecy. Any witness will be able to say things or exaggerate facts without being held accountable by the public. By hearing testimony in secret you do not protect people. Quite the opposite, you give them the freedom to misrepresent without accountability.

We think Mr. Zack's ban so seriously damages the credibility of any result of the hearing that the panel should quit now and allow another panel to start fresh and in public. We think the BIU will never accept a decision based on evidence tainted by secrecy and they should not do so.