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232. The Law Commission told the evaluator that over the past three years it has
applied a three-fold test to topic selection, by asking:
(i)
Is the topic of such importance that law reform will significantly
improve New Zealander’s lives (w hether by removing injustice,
reducing cost, creating efficiency, or opening opportunity)?
(ii) Is the Commission the body best placed to deal with the topic?
(iii) Has the topic a good prospect of implementation; alternatively, is it
of such very great importance that the Commission should self refer
in any event?
233. The current Law Commission has found the test to be workable and considers
that some past problems would have been avoided by use of such formula.
234. Ministry of Justice officials told the evaluator that Ministers would agree to the
Law Commission working on some projects of its own. The officials themselves
did not seem to be pressing the idea that the power of the Commission to take
references of its own making should be curtailed. The important thing is that the
Minister has the power to give priorities to the Law Commission. Section 7(3)
of the Law Commission Act already provides for this.
235. Among the people to whom the evaluator talked in the course of preparing this
Report, there was no one in favour of reducing the Law Commission’s
independence. But there was a great body of opinion that the so-called
“strike rate” for the enactment of Reports should be improved.
236. There is no escape from the proposition that, in the end, law reform is a political
activity that must be agreed to by Ministers and MPs since they make the law.
The Law Commission is not and cannot be some kind of second chamber of
Parliament or bevy of platonic guardians whose deliberations deserve favoured
consideration. The Law Commission's proposals must take their place in the
Government’s legislative pr ogramme like all the other legislative proposals and
find a place there on their own merits.