Law reform 'lagging in New Zealand’

Press, 28 August 1980, Page 11

Law reform 'lagging in New Zealand’

New Zealand’s law reform machinery is lagging behind - that- of Australia, Fiji a n d Papua New Guinea, according to an Australian law professor. Professor D. J. Whalan, chairman of the professo- ■' rial board at the Australian National University in Canberra, told a conference of the Australian Universities Law Schools’ Association in Dunedin that New Zealand should establish a law reform commission-.. New Zealand’s, present machinery could not respond ■ to ' the challenges ...facing the. law ’.in the next ~2® years, he said. One ;of j£-tbe‘ ’’ greatest challenges ' would be- the growth of computers and other technology. -The threats to job's and the intrusion of privacy had been well publicised and acknowledged. *.New. Zealand alreadyhad a Law Reform Council, five law . reform com-

mittees and a law reference division in the Justice Department. But all these committees dealt mainly with technical, non-controversial law. “The present New Zealand machinery is not' constituted to deal with tomorrow’s world,” Professor Whalan said. A law reform commission “of the modest kind” would not be expensive. The costs would be small compared with the benefits. A commission should be asked to tackle contentious, and socially or politically sensitive areas of reform. This was happening successfully in Australia, he said. Law reform must become more public. Before reports were completed public discussion was very important — that was part of the democratic process. A commission must also co-operate closely with the Minister responsible. Its' task would be to try

out new ideas, said Professor Whalan. “if the commission floats a proposal that the public does not like then the commission gets a bloody nose; but there is no skin off the Minister’s nose,” he said. In that way the commission could help the Minister greatly. If there tvas to be public consultation then senior staff of the commission must be prepared to discuss and explain the commission’s activities. Law reform should i.jt only involve lawyers. If a commission was set up, the involvement of nonlawyers would be one of the most significant advances made in New Zealand law reform. All bodies should work together in law reform, he said. *‘lt matters . not to me where the credit falls, it matters to me that imaginative and necessary law reform proposals should become legislation,” said Professor Whalan.