Neil Sands
Attorney-General Judith Collins KC has thrown her weight behind a project that combines the vast array of legally binding rules and regulations created outside Parliament, saying she was “absolutely shocked” to discover that such basic information was not readily available to all New Zealanders.
The project will expand the legislation.govt.nz website to form a single access point for secondary legislation, which is created by a range of departments and government entities, including regulators, under the delegated authority of Parliament.
While the details of such regulations, orders, rules, exemptions, bylaws, notices, etc, can seem eye-glazing, Collins pointed out they could have a major impact on how New Zealanders live their lives or go about their work.
She cited restrictions put in place by health authorities during the covid pandemic, saying the ever-changing rules were announced via statements to the media, making them hard to find, let alone follow.
“[You had] orders being put out by way of press release. It’s not acceptable when you are creating laws that people can be held account for breaking and if you can’t find out what the law is,” Collins told LawNews.
“Ignorance of the law is no excuse, but then part of that also has to be that the law is accessible… Regulation by press release is simply not acceptable.
“Press releases go to media outlets, they don’t go to the general public. The general public doesn’t know about them and the general public are the people who are actually bound by them. Totally unacceptable.”
‘Basic right’
Officials admit they do not know how many pieces of secondary legislation exist, with estimates ranging from 7,500 to 10,000.
There are about 100 agencies authorised to draft their own rules, along with all local authorities, and the ways they are communicated to the public is piecemeal, at best.
Some are published in the government gazette; some on the agencies’ various websites; some in newspaper notices.
“Sometimes, they appear to not be publicly available at all,” Collins said.
“These variable publication arrangements undermine the rule of law, increase compliance costs, hamper digital government and impair scrutiny of delegated law-making powers.”
Under the Legislative Amendment Bill now before Parliament, agencies will have to follow standardised publication procedures and post their secondary legislation on approved websites.
In addition, the legislation.govt.nz website will have searchable links to all secondary legislation.
“This has been something of a passion of mine since I was chair of the Regulation Review Committee in opposition and found out by questioning the Parliamentary Counsel Office (PCO) and others that a lot of our regulations weren’t easily accessible to the public,” Collins said.
She said the secondary legislation database would be useful for lawyers, but would also allow a fishing enthusiast to check catch limits or a plumber to examine the regulations applying to various jobs.
“If it’s plumbers and gasfitters, it’s not good enough to say ‘the association will know’. Everyone should be able to know. You shouldn’t have to go to a law firm to find out what regulations have been made in your area.
“It’s just basic common sense… and it’s a basic right for people.”
‘Procedural unity’
The change has enjoyed cross-party support in Parliament, although both Labour and the Greens said they had concerns which they would be raised at select committee.
Labour’s shadow Attorney-General Vanushi Walters said the bill “brings the House together in procedural unity”.
Outlining the shortcomings of the current situations, she told Parliament: “It makes it very hard to understand what the law is. It increases cost to individuals and other entities in terms of spending time locating the law. It reduces Parliament’s oversight of secondary legislation.
“And it also makes it considerably harder for us to meet our international obligations, which more and more are asking us to ensure that all law, including that raft of secondary legislation, is freely available online.”
The PCO has set up a publicly available demonstration website, available here, and is seeking feedback which can be incorporated into the final version.
The Legislative Amendment Bill passed its first reading on July 22 and has been referred to the Justice Select Committee, with a report due back to Parliament by December 18.
After the bill passes, agencies will have 12 months to comply with publication requirements.
0 Comments