Arthur Milnes
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jan 27/99) - Members of the public have less than a month to provide written submissions to a three-member panel struck by the legislative assembly to review territorial conflict of interest legislation, policies and guidelines.

The panel -- agreed to by MLAs last month at the same time they voted to accept a report by Conflict of Interest Commissioner Anne Crawford concerning former premier Don Morin -- has until April 15 to prepare its report and recommendations.

On Thursday, it was announced the panel would be chaired by former Alberta cabinet minister and current provincial ethics commissioner Robert Clark. It will also include the acting director of Mackenzie Court Workers, Yellowknife's Sue Heron-Herbert and Yukon Conflict of Interest Commissioner Ted Hughes.

At the time of Crawford's report, Morin cast doubts on the conflict inquiry process and whether the commissioner was biased against him. He attempted to prevent MLAs from seeing the report -- which found he had violated guidelines eight times -- by seeking a judicial review.

This was refused and NWT Supreme Court Justice John Vertes said, in a ruling released earlier this month, that Crawford and her office fell under parliamentary privilege conventions and could not be reviewed by the courts.

The review panel's report will be submitted to the legislative assembly's Management and Services board which is made up of five MLAs and chaired by assembly Speaker Sam Gargan. Though normally secretive, the assembly has already announced the report will be released publicly.

Written submissions can be sent to the review panel at the legislative assembly until Feb. 17.