THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1908. THE CONSOLIDATED STATUTES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3032, 31 October 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1908. THE CONSOLIDATED STATUTES.

The final supplementary report of the Commissioners, under The Reprint of Statutes Act, 1895, is to hand. The work of " consolidating the Statutes is one of great importance and benefit to the legal profession, and generally an advantage and convenience to all who have, in the course of their duties, to consult Acts of Parliament. The Commissioners in their report remark, inter alia, that independent Acts are often passed on the same subject, the later Act frequently making no reference to the prior Act. This is a practice always more or less emharassing, as it may easily require judicial interpretation to say how far the earlier Act remains operative or unaffected. But greater difficulty, the Commissioners continue, arises in connection with amending enactments. The existing practice is to pass an amending Act framed in the shortest way by incorporating or applying uther Acts, wholly or in part, and frequently allowing the parent Act to remain intact without any express repeal or modification. Instead of clearing the ground by

repealing obsolete or inconsistent enactments, or explaining how far the new law shall supersede the prior law, the amending process is repeated from time to time until a mass of inconsistent legislation is in existence only to bewilder and irritate those who have to administer it. That this is an evil common to all legislative bodies is apparent from the following quotation from "Legislative Methods and Forms"—a work by Sir Courtenay Ilbert, for some time Parliamentary Counsel to the Treasury, and now Clerk to the House of Commons. At page 118 he says, "It is comparatively easy to amend a single Act. But when amendments of the law cannot be effected except by patching up several Acts, 'applying' or 'adapting' several more, and appending in schedules lists or fragments of others, the result is apt to be distracting to the legislator, the administrator, and the private citizen. Yet such is the inevitable result of piling Act upon Act without any attempt to weld into shape any part of the chaotic heap." These remarks put the whole case in a concrete form, and are well worthy of attention. One obvious remedy in such cases is to repeal the old Acts, and re-enact them so far as necessary. r This could be adopted, at all events, in all cases where the prior Acts are

short. Another cause of confusion is that many amending Acts are of a local nature, with a limited operation, or intended to affect only particular areas; but, instead of only doing this, they are often expressed in general terms and alter the general law. Hence, there is confusion and uncertainty. Again, such Acts are often drawn in (different modes, and use language in various senses, thus leading to ambiguity and doubt. The Commissioners venture to think that in no case should an Act be submitted for the Governor's assent without a written certificate from some competent authority (a) that all necessary repeals and modifications of prior enactments have been duly made, and (b) that the Act is in harmony with the existing law, and is so expressed as to satisfactorily carry out its purpose. The report says that it is scarcely to be expected that the consolidated edition, which is now the law, will be found free from error. The Commissioners, however, declare that they have done their best, and that where mistakes appear the Legislature must supply the necessary corrections.