Statutes Amendments

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22509, 17 September 1938, Page 16

Statutes Amendments

The dangers of a confused and puzzling Statute Book are so great and they may "so easily be multiplied, as they are, by what seem to be convenient devices, ' that any protest at the source of the trouble ought to be commended. The member for Waitomo, at the beginning of " the week, protested against the practice of introducing amendments to miscellaneous statutes by clauses lumped together in a hold-all bill—a practice which, he said, " makes it most diffi- " cult for practitioners and almost impossible "for laymen to follow the law." This is true, and its application is by no means restricted to merely occasional and petty legislative changes. The mischief of the device is associated with another, which increases it: the. device of legislating extensively by reference. An amending clause will skip a mazy way through legislation, altering, interpreting, adding, deleting, and will be wholly unintelligible until the path has been traced —if then. The use of explanatory memoranda is rare. Mr C. T. Cari 1 has said, referring to English law: "As a col- " lection, our statute-book might be summed " up as beyond the average citizen's pocket to "purchase, beyond his book-shelves to accom- " modate, beyond his leisure to study, and be"yond his intellect to comprehend." There is no good reason why these largely unavoidable difficulties should be lazily or freakishly increased by technical devices which have no value but that of the expediency of an hour. Mr Broadfoot completed his case, when he said that the Statutes Revision Committee of the House had done nothing for three years.