British peer found N.Z. ahead in law reform

Press, 10 February 1986, Page 13

British peer found N.Z. ahead in law reform

NZPA Staff correspondent London

New Zealand “lit the lamp of law reform” for Britain to follow 20 years ago, said the newly retired senior law lord, Baron Scarman. He reminded a New Zealand Society Waitangi Day dinner at the Savoy Hotel that he was the first chairman of the Law Commission which moved Britain towards law reform from 1965. "I came across the work of the New Zealand legal establishment, judges and lawyers, only to discover that you were way ahead of us,” Lord Scarman, aged 74, said. “You were tackling the law relating to marriage and women. You were tackling the law protecting human rights. “I suddenly realised

that here was this little country that not only regularly destroyed us at rugger but went further and lit the lamp of law reform that we could follow,” he said.

Lord Scarman also said New Zealand, Australia and Britain were bound together by ties of common law and language. “Long after all the other ties have disappeared ... the English language and the common law will remain as absolutely undissolvable bonds between Australia, New Zealand and Britain, whatever the political, economic or social climate may be. “Basically we shall belong to the same civilisation, whatever else the future may hold.” The dinner, attended by about 400 people with New Zealand connections,

was told by the Acting London High Commissioner, Mr Neil Walter, that there had been a “fundamental reassessment” of New Zealand’s place in the world in recent times.

“Our Pacific identity and regional commitments have taken on a new significance,” Mr Walter said.

It “could in a sense parallel Britain’s decision to pay more attention to Europe in these last few years,” he said.

“Our Government has made it quite clear that neither your closer identification with Europe nor our closer identification with our Pacific neighbours should in any way diminish or weaken the ties that bind us together,” Mr Walter said.