AMBIGUOUS STATUTES

Northern Advocate, 14 August 1931, Page 4

AMBIGUOUS STATUTES

It lias been said that it is possible to drive a eoaeh and four through any Act of Parliament providing the man on the box seat, knows bow to handle the reins. This may, or may not, be strictly accurate, but the v e is a

general consensus of opinion .that! many of the Acts passed by the, New Zealand Parliament during, recent years have been marred by ( unnecessary looseness in drafts-1 manship. The recent judgment of! Mr Justice Herdman in the test action in relation to the Auckland Education Board’s power to (dismiss married women teachers is a case in point. His Honour’s ruling was that Section 34 of the Finance Act (No. 2) 1931 gave education boards no new power to dismiss such teachers. As the Christchurch Press points out, the decision shows that the section does not bear its intended effect, which was that the boards should obtain this power. In other words, the drafting was so bad that it defeated its own purpose, although that was clear and simple; and whether the defeat is for its own sake welcome or unwelcome, the cause should not escape notice. The particular kind of bad draftsmanship or law-framing here exemplified is not the commonest and certainly not the worst, says the ‘Tress.” Parliament may often miss its aim com pletely or partly, or may exceed it, without doing any harm, at least without doing irreparable harm. If the language of the law is clear, even though inadequate to legislative purpose, its dangers are soon and easily exposed. But the process of law-making today is subject to all the old weaknesses and some- new ones. “Many Statutes are now loaded with references to others and cannot be understood until all these references are followed up and filled out. If the ideal Act of Parliament is one which explains itself, the ideal has never been more callously abandoned than in some examples of legislation by reference. The second development, of course, is the almost automatic inclusion in modern Acts of a clause giving officials unlimited power to make regulations with the force of law and to create offences accordingly. There is a good deal to Ite said for the theory that Parliamentary procedure is out of date and must be recast to satisfy the increasingly complex and technical nature of modern legislation; but it will be time to consider this recasting when Parliament has done its utmost to use existing machinery efficiently and has fully revived its sense of authority and of responsibility.”