Where an appeal raises both procedural fairness/bias grounds and substantive grounds, the appellate court must address the fairness/bias issues first and, if made out, remedy the defect rather than proceeding to determine substantive grounds. A tainted order should be set aside in the public interest in the integrity of the administration of justice, even where the underlying dispute is moot and the order has achieved its purpose. Detailed and cogent reasons for rejecting evidence will not support a finding of apprehended bias merely because the judge also made an extraneous personal observation about the witness.
The full text is available to signed-in members.