Chapter 7: Appoint Inquiry Commissioners and staff KEY QUESTIONS • Who makes up the inquiry team? • What qualifications, expertise, experience and skills are required in the team? • What are the various roles and functions to be undertaken by team members? 7.1. THE NATIONAL INQUIRY TEAM There are two distinct groups within the national inquiry team. Inquiry members – usually formally called Inquiry Commissioners – are responsible collectively for the inquiry. They decide its direction, conduct the formal hearings, determine the findings and conclusions, and make the recommendations. They have public and political responsibility for the inquiry. The inquiry staff members are the implementers who make the inquiry happen. They need to do the organising and administration, undertake research, manage the public hearings, draft the report and propose recommendations for the inquiry members to consider. They also implement the inquiry’s strategies. Every national inquiry needs the right team, with the right mix of skills and experience to make the inquiry successful. A national inquiry is a big project with a broad, comprehensive approach to human rights protection and promotion. That means that it requires a wide range of skills and expertise in the inquiry team. Typically, a national inquiry will need members and staff with skills in human rights law, research, policy development, investigation, community education, media liaison, administration and management. Ideally the inquiry team includes those with expertise and experience in the subject matter of the inquiry. The background or scoping paper should indicate the range and levels of skills required and the number of team members with those skills or that expertise. It should also indicate the periods during which particular areas of skills and expertise will be required – it may not be necessary to have all the identified staff for the full length of the inquiry. 7.1.1. Inquiry Commissioners (or members) The Inquiry Commissioners are the internal drivers and the external face of the inquiry. They are ultimately responsible, on behalf of the NHRI, for the conduct of the inquiry and for its report and recommendations. They collectively lead the whole inquiry team, with the chairperson of the inquiry individually leading the inquiry members. The NHRI itself needs to determine and formally appoint those who are to undertake the inquiry on its behalf. In determining who will constitute the inquiry, the NHRI must ensure that each Inquiry Commissioner is a person with the required qualities: • recognised integrity • political independence • existing expertise and experience in at least one area to be covered by the inquiry • commitment to the inquiry process Chapter 7: Appoint Inquiry Commissioners and staff | 33