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departments, Offices of Parliament, Crown entities, public organisations or
State enterprises.
375. It is recommended that the Law Commission Act be amended to allow a
similar procedure in respect to Law Commission Reports.
376. It is neither competent nor appropriate to make such a change by Standing
Orders, since the Law Commission is not established under the Standing Orders
but by statute. Furthermore, given the nature of Law Commission Reports, their
length and complexity, it is thought that the period for the Governments
response should be longer than three months; it should be six months.
377. It is appreciated that there are resource implications in this recommendation. It
will require Departments whose activities impinge upon the area of a Law
Commission Report to report to their Ministers and for Reports to be prepared
for Ministers and ultimately for Cabinet. The interested Departments should be
familiar with the work the Commission has been doing and they also should
have been contributing to it. So the burden should not be great.
378. It is suggested, however, that the comparatively small amount of public money
that would be required for these endeavours is outweighed by the fact that large
amounts of public money have already been spent on Law Commission Reports
that have not even been considered by the Government.
379. The change recommended here is the only amendment to the statute that is
recommended in this evaluation. Such a change will ensure that Reports are not
left languishing for years unaddressed. That practice has had a sapping effect
upon the morale of both Law Commissioners and their staff. It has cast
something of a blight over the whole of the Commissions activities and this
blight needs to be removed.
380. Again, Chief Parliamentary Counsel provided thoughtful and compelling advice
in his written statement about what the Government must do to meet its side of
the obligations that the continuing existence of a Law Commission impose upon
it. He said:
There has to be a stronger government commitment to implementing the Law
Commissions recommendations and to providing policy and drafting resources.