Newsletter
			of the		
Commonwealth Association of Legislative Counsel
December 2013 

Published in Canberra, Australia, by the Commonwealth Association of Legislative Counsel. Online at www.opc.gov.au/calc/newsletters.htm
Editor: Fiona Leonard, c/- Parliamentary Counsel Office, Level 12 Reserve Bank Building, No 2 The Terrace, Wellington, New Zealand.

In this issue―
CALC President’s report
Report from the Associations of Parliamentary and Legislative Counsel in Canada
Items of interest
Membership
Secretary contact details

CALC President’s report
November 2013

Dear CALC Members
The CALC Council is continuing to work on a range of the matters that I mentioned in my report in May.
In November, CALC was represented at CHOGM by Council Member Therese Perera. CHOGM was held in Colombo, Sri Lanka. I think that it is useful for CALC to raise the profile of legislative counsel by attending such events.
We are continuing with planning for the CALC Conference 2015. As you would be aware, the conference will be held in Edinburgh, Scotland, in April 2015. We have set up a number of working groups consisting of CALC Council members and staff from the Scottish drafting office. Having seen some of the initial planning, I am already quite excited about the conference. There will be a call for papers early in 2014, so I would encourage you to start thinking about topics that you may be able to speak on.
As you would have seen, The Loophole continues to be issued on a regular basis. I note that since 2009 we have been able to produce 3 issues each year. I think that the approach that has been adopted of having an editor in chief (John Mark Keyes) working with an editorial board (Beng Ki Owi, Therese Perera, Bilika Simamba) is working very well. I would like to thank them, and all of the contributing authors, for their work in maintaining the very high standard of the publication. Anyone who is interested in submitting an article for publication is encouraged to contact John Mark.
We continue to have a regular stream of job advertisements on the CALC website. The feedback that we have got from a number of offices that have advertised on the site has been very positive. If your office is advertising drafting positions, I suggest that you consider advertising on the CALC website as you can be assured that an email will be sent directly to over 1,000 legislative counsel across the Commonwealth. Our ability to bring the positions to the attention of the target audience for these positions is unrivalled.
We have also agreed that we will post relevant advertisements from international bodies at no cost. No emails are sent about these, but you can see them by checking the CALC employment page.
The CALC Council has also started work on the project to consider ways of assisting smaller drafting offices. I hope to be able to provide more details in a future report.
Some work is underway on possible regional CALC conferences. In some cases, this will be conferences that are organised and run by CALC and in others it will be seeking to get greater CALC involvement in drafting conferences that are run by other groups. (I note that we are happy to advertise conferences that are relevant to drafters on the CALC website.)
All in all, CALC continues to be active as we start to look forward to Edinburgh 2015.
Regards
Peter Quiggin PSM
CALC President

Report from the Associations of Parliamentary and Legislative Counsel in Canada

The joint meeting of the Canadian Associations of Parliamentary and Legislative Counsel was held in Edmonton, Alberta from September 11 to 13, 2013. This was the latest of a series of annual meetings dating back to the early 90s. The Association of Parliamentary Counsel in Canada was founded in 1982. It includes legal counsel in an office providing parliamentary counsel services to a House of Parliament or to the legislative assembly of a province or territory.  The Association of Legislative Counsel in Canada was founded in 1994. It includes legal counsel in an office providing legislative services to the federal government or to the executive government of a province or territory.
At this year’s meeting, a set of Organizational Principles and Guidelines was adopted for the two associations by the heads of the parliamentary and legislative counsel offices. It affirms the informal nature of the associations and the arrangements they have for meeting jointly each year.
The meeting provides an invaluable opportunity for the heads of offices and some of their staff to meet to discuss questions of common concern and to update each other on significant parliamentary and legislative developments in their jurisdictions. This year’s agenda included:
•	developments in the judicial review of delegated legislation
•	developments at the federal level relating to the use of incorporation by reference in regulations
•	practices and challenges relating to the revision and consolidation of legislation
•	recent cases from Canada, the UK and the US dealing with parliamentary privilege, including the use of resources for constituency work, reports of parliamentary proceedings, criminal investigations, defamation actions and access to information requests
•	the Open Educational Resources project on legislative drafting training materials of Commonwealth of Learning and Athabasca University
•	internet publication of legislation
•	the advisory role of government legislative counsel in relation to private members bills
•	ongoing work on the Parliamentary Case Law Update prepared by the Office of the Law Clerk to the Senate (a compendium of Canadian case law summaries now stretching back to 1996)
•	jurisdictional updates.
In addition to the stimulating discussion of these topics, the delegates also enjoyed some of the best weather Edmonton has to offer as well as an evening at the heritage park of Fort Edmonton and some fine dining and western entertainment at the Selkirk Hotel.
JM Keyes
Adjunct Professor and Legislative Consultant
University of Ottawa/Athabasca University
Canada

Items of interest
Official New Zealand legislation to be available online from January 2014
From 6 January 2014, New Zealand’s Chief Parliamentary Counsel will issue official electronic legislation under section 17 of the Legislation Act 2012 via the New Zealand Legislation website (www.legislation.govt.nz).
At present, only New Zealand legislation printed and published by the Parliamentary Counsel Office or the New Zealand Government is official.
Official legislation will be in PDF format and will display the New Zealand Coat of Arms on the first page.

PDFs of the following documents will be official:
•	every Act and Legislative Instrument enacted or made since 2008
•	every reprint (subsequent version) of those Acts and Legislative Instruments
•	the latest version of all principal (ie not amendment) Acts and Legislative Instruments enacted or made between 1931 and 2007, if still in force
•	the latest versions of some pre-1931 Acts
•	some earlier reprints of those 1931-2007 Acts and Legislative Instruments, and some earlier reprints of those pre-1931 Acts.
A printout of an official PDF will also be official, whether printed by the website user, published by the Parliamentary Counsel Office, or printed commercially. 
All website users will benefit from official online legislation, because the accuracy of official legislation has been checked and assured. Access to online official legislation will also save time and effort for all those involved in court proceedings. Legal practitioners and litigants in person will no longer need to rely on out-of-date printed legislation when filing court papers, and Judges will have access to accurate online legislation.
The website will also, from January, offer the ability to order online commercially-printed copies of all current legislation and earlier versions of legislation. Users will still be able to print legislation for themselves free of charge.
The Parliamentary Counsel Office will reduce the variety of hard-copy legislation that it publishes. For example, annual bound volumes will stop after 2013 (although a commercial printer will continue to offer these).
Fiona Leonard 
Deputy Chief Parliamentary Counsel
Wellington, New Zealand

Membership
New CALC members
The following have been recorded as members of CALC since the publication of the last CALC Newsletter in May 2013, as at 22 November 2013.
Name	Country	
Abdullah, Hajah Pauziah 	Brunei Darussalam	
Abel, Tulimbumi Bwambi 	Tanzania	
Ali, Saferi 	Malaysia	
Andrews, Michael 	Australia	
Angula, Naemi Ndalila 	Namibia	
Antonio, Hamilton Mariano Baptista 	Angola	
Barry, Paul 	Ireland	
Blood, Jennifer Leigh 	Canada	
Cassidy, Kevin 	United Kingdom	
Chakraborty, Anshuman 	New Zealand	
Chng, Stanley 	Singapore	
De Sousa, Zenilda Caludia Dos Santos 	Angola	
Esther, Yee 	Singapore 	
Graham, Peter KCB QC 	France	
Guthrie, Mark Jonathan	United Kingdom	
Hambali, Norazamiah 	Brunei Darussalam	
Hardy, Susan Lois 	Canada	
Henriques, Fabricia Almeida 	Mozambique	
Ibitoye, Adeniran Felix 	Nigeria	
Joanita, Nakachwa 	Uganda	
Kayitsinga, Alexandre 	Rwanda	
Lebone, Likonelo	Lesotho	
Lumueno, Witold Selfroneo de Gloria 	Angola	
Ma, Flora Ka Hei 	Hong Kong	
Macfarlane, Amanda 	United Kingdom	
Macmenamin, Fiona 	Ireland	
Mateus, Mario Rui Dos Santos 	Angola	
McCabe, Jason 	Ireland	
Mendis, Dayantha Laksiri 	Sri Lanka	
Miguel, Edmundo 	Angola	
Mobbs, Trevor 	Australia	
Moqhali, Mookho 	Lesotho	
Mtyaphi, Bafundi 	South Africa	
Murphy, Annalee 	United Kingdom	
Nonkumbulo Tshombe, Lawrena 	South Africa	
Ntwana, Nkuleleko Milton 	South Africa	
O'Grady, Cathleen 	Canada	
Pikovsky, Eliaz 	Australia	
Rees, Dustin Brian 	South Africa	
Reynolds-Lewis, Claire 	United Kingdom	
Rillstone, Zoe 	New Zealand	
Sealiete, Phakiso 	Lesotho	
Silveira, Joao Tiago 	Portugal	
Skhosana, Thandazile 	South Africa	
Stander, Retha 	South Africa	
Tam, Clara 	Hong Kong	
Ugolo, John 	Sudan	
Unger, Robyn 	Australia	
Visser, Charné Lee-Ann 	Namibia	
Walsh, Owen 	Australia	
Whitehead, Angela 	Canada	
Worsnip, Paul Ross 	South Africa	
Zhuzwayo, Daphney Nozipho 	South Africa	

Secretary contact details
If you wish to contact the CALC Secretary, Fiona Leonard, regarding membership or any other CALC matters, her email address is: 
fiona.leonard@parliament.govt.nz