CO129-388 - Governor Sir Lugard - 1912 [1-2] — Page 29

Ordinance Tho. 61 of 91

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19

Objects-and-BoneONS,

When Ordinance No. 19 of 1911, which was drafted by the Editor now engaged in the preparation of the New Revised Edition of the Ordinances, was passed it was in- tended to make that edition the statute book for general use, in much the same way as the Law Reports Statute or the Revised Statutes are in general use in England; but it was not intended to make the edition incapable of challenge. It is true that Ordinance No. 12 of 1900 made the Revised Edition the sole and only proper statute book of the Colony but an enactment to that effect was absolutely necessary in the case of the Carrington edition because the Editor of that edition used the powers conferred by Ordinance No. 12 of 1900 to their full extent and that Ordinance was not followed by a series of Special Revision Ordinances author- ising the alterations in detail. In the Piggott edition the Editor's authority to revise is not derived solely from Ordin- ance No. 19 of 1911. In addition to that there are or will be a series of Special Revision Ordinances authorising the change in detail, this series comprises Ordinances Nos. 15, 24, 25, 28, 30, 31 and 36 together with the Law Revision, the Law Amendment, and the General Revision Ordinances re- cently passed and others now in course of preparation. However the Colony has grown accustomed to a "sole and only statute book aud there are

many obvious advantages in such a book, therefore on a re-consideration of the question and at the suggestion of His Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies it has been decided to make the New Revised Edition the sole and only proper statute book of the Colony. At the same time it is desirable to make provision for the preservation of all the original statutes and to make them available for use in Court and elsewhere in cases in which, as often happens, it is necessary to refer to repealed enactments. This decision has made it necessary that sectious 9, 10 and 11 of Ordinance No. 19 of 1911 should be entirely re- written and re-enacted, It will be noticed that clause 2 of this Bill authorises the deletion of the word "minor" from the section of Ordinance No. 19 of 1911 which permitted the Editor to make minor grammatical amendments. The word is one which immediately introduces controversy and the Editor has asked that it should be deleted. As has already been stated it is intended that all actual amendments will be already authorised in one or other of the Ordinances in the Special Revision series and so the retention of the word "minor" becomes unnecessary. The editor does not intend to make any grammatical amendments which will alter the sense or to make any to which in his opinion the word "minor" does not properly apply, but he would na- turally prefer that controversy should be avoided by the deletion of that word. The amendment to section 7 is due to the fact that some of the Revision Ordinances cannot be passed until the year 1912.

C. G. ALABASTER, Attorney General,