The Judicature Act 1908 is over one hundred years old and has been amended many times. Many of the sections in the Act are outdated, and it contains “hidden” commercial law and judicial review provisions. The focus of the Law Commission’s...
Our projects
Each project is an area of law or subject matter that the Law Commission has agreed to review. The Commission works on several projects at a time. Together, these projects make up the Commission's annual work programme.
Use the search filters below to find particular projects. For more information on how we work see how we conduct projects.
Project status
Areas of law
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For this project, the Commission reviews the Trustee Act 1956 and trust law generally. In the first stage of this review, the Report, Review of the Law of Trusts: A Trusts Act for New Zealand (R130) is preceded by six Issues Papers. The...
This project arises from ongoing work on damages and the introduction into Parliament of the Employment Contracts Bill.
For this project, the Commission reviews existing rules of evidence around admissibility of previous convictions, similar offending and bad character. In particular, the extent to which the court is made aware of prior convictions of an accused,...
This project reviews existing rules providing access to Court records and developing principles to govern access to Court records, the retention and archiving of records. It considers the appropriateness of a single code providing rules for all...
The purpose of this project is to review the legal framework for adoption in New Zealand as set out in the Adoption Act 1955 and the Adult Adoption Information Act 1985, and to recommend whether and how the framework should be modified to better...
This project considers the rules in Bain v Fothergill and Joyner v Weeks. The Commission concludes that the rules established in the two cases were unjustified and contrary to principle. It proposes that they be abolished by...
The Report for this project is the third arising from the Law Commission’s review of aspects of damages. In 1991, the Commission reported on Employment Contracts and the Rule in Addis v Gramophone Co (R18, 1991), and on The Rules in ...
This project discusses nine current trust law problems and makes recommendations thereon. One proposal is to authorise trustees to delegate to agents their powers to administer the trust, including powers of investment and management, but...
This purpose of this project is to advise whether compensation should be paid to those who have been wrongly prosecuted or convicted of an offence, and if so, to recommend a systematic basis upon which compensation may be determined and paid.