Orders-in-Council.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20454, 6 November 1934, Page 6

Orders-in - Council.

System Defended.

Government by Public Servants. (“ Star ” Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, This Day. TAEFENDING the delegation of legislative powers to Public by Order-in-Council, the Public Service Commissioner, Mr Verschaffelt, in his annual report says that the growth in the amount of detailed legislation has made the delegation of authority necessary. Mr \ erschaffelt contends that the critics of the Order-in-Council system overlook the facts. “ These demands have arisen, not from the public service, but from the people themselves,” he says. ”It is clear that critics do not appear to be alive to th e evolutionary change in public administration which has been ir; perceptibly brought about by the growing dependence of the public itself, in particular of defined classes and sections of the public, upon legislative protection and supervisory control of matters which in former times were considered capable of protection from within the ranks of private activities themselves.” The English Commission. Extensive quotations are made in the report from the opinions expressed by the English Commission which investigated allegations that Government departments had been encroaching on the provinces of the legislature and judiciary. It was found, states the Public Service Commissioner, that delegated legislation is inevitable under the present parliamentary system, and it would be futile for Parliament to work out details of legislative changes. Ihe legislature had not time to discuss minor matters or technical details. A New Zealand example is the electrical wiremen’s regulations, which, according to the Public Service Covmnissioner, with their mass of technical diagrams and details, fill a reasonably sized volume. The English Commission followed critic ism by Lord Chief Justice Hewart, extended in his book, “ The New Despotism, which attempted to show that the Civil Service had attempted to “ cajole, coerce and to use parliament.” The Commissioner declares that the subsequent official inquiry removed at the outset the foundation for Lord Hewart’s case by acquitting the Civil Service of any such sinister motives, and Lord Hewart himself could not give any examples of abuse of power by Civil Servants. ... Turning again to New Zealand criticisms. Mr Verschaffelt remarks: ‘‘Misunderstanding is caused by remarks made sometimes in our Courts when the application to some new set of facts of a regulation or Order-in-Council is placed before the judiciary for consideration. Liberty of the Subject. “ Then, and in most cases without justification. the cry is carelessly raised in public that the liberty of the subject is :n danger by reason of the delegation to officers of the public service of powers which should be vested in the legislature itself. It is overlooked that the primary function of Parliament is the safeguarding of that liberty, and that Parliament of itself is incapable of performing the now innumerable administrative functions by which such safeguards as it imposes can best be made secure, for it is clear that liberty can best be secured, not by curtailment of control, but by its extension. The conditions of modern society have crowded upon Parliament, and what is no less important, on members of the Government and Cabinet itself, far more work than either of them can be expected to perform with efficient consideration to detail. Neither body can devote the time to working out the administrative details by which the will of the legislature is made capable of execution.” The Commissioner predicts that the more social and industrial legislation increases the greater will be reliance on the public service to execute the legislative will. From a perusal of the English report on the investigation of this modern phase of administration the decision is arrived at. adds Mr Verschaffelt, that it is easy to criticise the growth of delegated legislative authority. “ The critics, however, are confounded when asked to devise a remedy for the situation they condemn,” he says.