5.4 Audi Alteram Partem (the Right to be Heard)

The rule: the person affected by a decision must be heard BEFORE the decision — the hearing as the decision's precondition. The hearing's components (the exam's list): The notice: the case's clear statement — the charges, the grounds, the proposed action (the vague notice vitiates all that follows); The evidence's disclosure: the case against the person — the materials' sight (the secret file's unfairness); The opportunity to respond: the written and oral representations; the counsel's assistance where the case is serious; The cross-examination's availability in the serious cases (the witnesses' testing — the quasi-judicial setting's fuller form); The decision by the hearing authority — the one who heard decides. The hearing's limits (the honest half): The statutory displacements: the security-and-emergency faces (the narrowly-read exclusions); The no-prejudice rescue: the hearing's denial excused where the outcome could not differ (the rare justification — the burden on the administration); The post-decision hearing: the interim suspension heard afterwards (the licence suspended pending inquiry — the court-upheld patterns where the urgency is real). The violation's consequence (the unit's bottom line): the decision void — quashed on certiorari (Unit 7's remedy) — the fairness's breach not cured by the decision's correctness: even a "right" answer reached unfairly is no decision at all. Exam Focus Long questions: (i) Natural justice — meaning, nature, scope, and the twin…