63
259. No recommendation is made to change the purpose and functions of the
Law Commission. Even if the aspirations of the Law Commission Act have not
been fully met, they remain highly desirable and it would be a retrograde step to
dilute them.
Current Obstacles to Achieving the Statutory Purpose
260. But although the desirable objectives are the same, the obstacles to achieving
those objectives are greater than they were when the Law Commission Act was
enacted in 1985. There are a number of subtle and interlocking causes for that
situation and it is beyond the scope of this Report to unravel them. But some
need to be mentioned.
261. There has been a tendency in New Zealand to regard some parts of the Statute
Book as peculiarly lawyers law and peculi arly within the province of lawyers to
decide as a policy matter. That probably was the situation in the past,
particularly with the part-time Law Reform Committees that sat with
Government officials as their members as well.
262. But it seems to the evaluator that there is almost nothing that is solely lawyers'
law now, if there ever was.
263. The process for making Government policy in the year 2000 is a great deal more
complex and intricate than it was in 1985 and the years preceding it. The entire
public sector has been transformed since 1985, and the milieu in which the Law
Commission operates is fundamentally different from that which it encountered
when it started out.
264. The process of policy analysis within the Executive Government in New Zealand
is much more rigorous and sophisticated than it was in 1985. The process now
requires policy to be analysed by various techniques including economic
analysis, cost/benefit analysis and analysis of compliance costs that are imposed
on businesses and the public by new legislative proposals.
265. MMP has slowed the legislative process down and added new complexities to
securing parliamentary agreement to measures proposed by the Executive.