Law reform system upheld

Press, 1 September 1980, Page 10

Law reform system upheld

Parliamentary reporter New Zealand’s law reform machinery stands comparison with any in the world, according to the Minister of Justice (Mr McLay). He was commenting on the reported statements of Professor- D. J. Whalan, of the Australian National University, which were printed in “The Press” on Thursday. Professor Whalan, called for a full-time law reform commission for New Zealand and said that New Zealand’s system could not respond to challenges facing the law and dealt mainly with technical, imcontentious law. - , “Our law reform committees have certainly not avoided wide and contentious topics," Mr McLay said. "To take three diverse areas only, I instance reports on credit contracts, culpable

homicide, and the citizen’s i remedies for wrongful acts i by the executive government. • One committee will report • soon on consumer sales and another is examining the difi ficult topic of bail. . “Our committees issue j working papers that are • available for public comment I and their reports are almost invariably published. I note i Professor Whalan’s remark i that if a commission floats a i proposal that the public does 9 not like, the commission and j not the Minister gets a 1 bloody nose. This can and I, has happened in New • Zealand. “For example the Criminal . Law Reform committee re. s cently reported on the power of the police to obtain bodily a samples from suspected per 9 sons. Justly or unjustly, its e recommendations have been

widely criticised without the Government’s being involved. In other words, we . already have the situation that Professor Whalan describes as desirable,” Mr McLay said.

“New Zealand also achieves a great deal outside the formal committee system. Looking only at the last five years, and then.. - only selectively, we have seen a completely new matrimonial property law, a human rights commission administering equal opportunities legislation, and big changes in securities legislation. We are well advanced towards a complete revamping of our courts system and a fundamental rewriting of our family law.” The tendency in many overseas countries with a law reform commission' was to produce excellent reports

with far-reaching recommendations, but not a great deal of legislation resulted from this. . . “I know of no Australian jurisdiction with a full-time law reform commission that has a comparable record of legislation to New Zealand’s in the last few years,” Mr McLay said. “Professor Whalan was reported as saying that the present New Zealand machinery is not constituted to deal with tomorrow’s world.

“I do not agree, but frankly my over-riding concern is that the law should continue to be adequate for today’s world. I can always see room for improvement, but there is no ground for supposing that we would do better by acquiring radically new law reform machinery," he said. . .. ,■