Parliament producing laws even top lawyers can’t understand

Some of the laws passed by the Tasmanian parliament are so badly worded that even the state’s top lawyer can’t understand what they’re on about. LATEST FROM PARLIAMENT >>

SOME of the laws passed by the Tasmanian parliament are so badly worded that even the state’s top lawyer can’t understand what they’re on about.

Solicitor General Michael O’Farrell said if he couldn’t make sense of legislation, ordinary people had no hope.

“Parliament’s endeavour should be to make laws that ordinary people can readily understand,” he said in his annual report tabled in state parliament on Tuesday.

“The complex and prescriptive nature of the provisions of some Tasmanian statues do no lend themselves to this aspiration.”

He nominated Schedule 6 or the Land Use Planning and Approvals Act as a particular favourite.

The schedule includes this 100 word behemoth of a sentence: “The Minister may, by a planning directive issued, in accordance with subclause (2A), under section 13(1) of the former provisions, modify the provisions of a directive (the original directive) that was issued, in accordance with subclause (2A), under section 13(1) of the former provisions, but only if it is necessary to modify the provisions of the original directive so as to ensure that the provisions, contained in a planning scheme in accordance with the original directive, will be consistent with the provisions of the SPPs as amended by an amendment of the SPPs made after the original directive was issued.

Solicitor General Michael O'Farrel. PIC: MATT THOMPSON

Mr O’Farrell said the schedule was hard work, even for him.

“I have spent many hours reading it and I still find some of its provisions very difficult to construe,” he wrote.

“If members of parliament are unable to understand the terms of the legislation they are debating, how can they be sure it is law for the peace, order and good government of the state?

“How can a citizen, without the means or desire to consult a lawyer be expected to obey the law?”

In his annual report, Director of Public Prosecutions Daryl Coates SC said that staff in his office were coming under personal attack over decisions on cases.

“Disappointingly there is increasingly a small minority of people who when criticising such decisions are choosing to make personal attacks on my staff,” he wrote.

Mr Coates said the criticism did not affect the work of his office in conducting itself with fairness and impartiality.

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