PRINCE.EDWARD.ISLAND (CBC) - Newfoundland and Labrador's justice minister has swung back against critics of his comments on the Cameron inquiry, saying a previous Liberal government raised similar questions about a previous commission.

Jerome Kennedy has come under fire from the Opposition Liberals for publicly raising questions about the cost, style and tone of the Cameron inquiry, which began hearing evidence in March about flawed hormone receptor testing at a St. John's pathology lab.

Kennedy told reporters Wednesday that the Liberals are wrong to say that Kennedy has taken "unprecedented" action involving an ongoing judicial inquiry.

Kennedy said former Liberal premier Clyde Wells and former justice minister Paul Dicks wrote to Justice Samuel Hughes in the early months of his commission of inquiry, to complain about the conduct of inquiry counsel.

Hughes was appointed in 1989 to investigate complaints of sexual abuse at the now-demolished Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John's, and how police and social services officials handled the case in the 1970s.

"Unless the Liberals [have] suggested that the former premier and the former minister of justice were taking steps that are inappropriate, I think that they should back off their comments," Kennedy said.

Kennedy also pointed out that Wells met privately with Hughes in September 1989.

Kennedy said the approach that he and Premier Danny Williams have taken - of making their views known publicly - is preferable.

"When meetings take place behind closed doors, there is certainly an argument to [be] made that there could a more coercive element to that, a more intimidating aspect," Kennedy said.

Kennedy acknowledged, though, that his reading of the documentary record shows that Hughes was not happy with the restrictions that Wells wanted to put on his inquiry. David Day, one of the two lawyers who examined witnesses at the inquiry, also objected.

Addresses Gomery comments

Meanwhile, Kennedy lashed out against criticism this week from retired judge John Gomery, who was appointed in 2004 to oversee the federal commission on the sponsorship scandal.

Gomery said it was inappropriate for Williams and Kennedy to have spoken out, and particularly said Williams should not have used the words "witch hunt" to describe the tone that inquiry counsel have taken. Gomery also said that his reading of the inquiry so far indicates that some witnesses have been covering up what they know.

The justice minister said it was "presumptuous" of Gomery to make what Kennedy slammed as "uneducated opinion."

"Judge Gomery is entitled to his opinion," Kennedy said.

"[But] prior to his being appointed to this commission, no one ever heard of him. He conducted a $60-million sideshow in Ottawa," Kennedy said.

"So who he is to come down here and start to tell us what to do - I have questions with that."

Kennedy also said that Gomery was accused of "holding a bias" during the inquiry into the sponsorship scandal, which examined how the former Chr?tien government used the federal sponsorship program to bolster federalism in Quebec.

The provincial government has applied to Justice Margaret Cameron to revisit whether inquiry co-counsel Bern Coffey and Sandra Chaytor have the right to cross-examine witnesses.

Cameron has given other counsel who have standing at the inquiry until Friday to respond to the government's application, and has said she expects to give her decision next week.

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