The government has introduced a Regulatory Standards Bill which has attracted a good deal of discussion. Its supporters maintain that it is helpful to lay out the principles that should guide legislation and regulation. Its opponents regard it as a massive reinforcement of corporate power.
The Archdiocesan Commission for Ecology, Justice, and Peace offers some thoughts that might help anyone who wishes to make a submission to the Select Committee on the Bill. As always, the Commission is guided by Catholic Social Teaching. A helpful outline of the principles of Catholic Social Teaching is at https://www.caritas.org.nz/catholic-social-teaching – Participation, a Preferential Option for the Poor and Vulnerable, Solidarity, Subsidiarity, Human Dignity, the Common Good, the Promotion of Peace, Distributive Justice, and Stewardship.
You can find the Bill and the portal for making a submission here. Note the deadline – Monday 23 June, 1.00pm.
The Bill assumes that there is a good deal of unnecessary regulation. Is this the case? Does the perception depend on one’s position? What, for example, is the balance between a landlord’s interest in managing their property as they see fit and a tenant’s interest in a healthy dwelling and a secure tenancy?
In Clause 8 the Bill specifies the ‘principles of responsible legislation’, which should guide regulation. Some parts, like reference to the rule of law, are not controversial. But much is open to interpretation. If law should not ‘unduly’ limit a person’s ‘liberty, personal security, freedom of choice or action, or rights to own, use, and dispose of property, except as is necessary to provide for, or protect, any such liberty, freedom, or right of another person’, who decides what ‘unduly’ means?
Another principle is that property should not be taken without a ‘good justification’. Again, who decides? And should compensation always be paid if a property right is infringed? For example, compensation is reasonable if land is taken for a road. But is it reasonable if new environmental standards require the reduction of pollution?
Should a statement of principles like this include reference to the Treaty of Waitangi/te Tirit o Waitangi? To the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act? To general principles of environmental sustainability and the rights of all people to an adequate standard of living?
The Bill proposes to establish a Regulatory Standards Board, which will be entirely appointed by the Minister of Regulation. Is such a Board necessary, and if so what should be the criteria for membership? Or do we have enough bodies charged with reviewing regulation and legislation: the Ombudsman, the Courts, Parliamentary Select Committees, the Waitangi Tribunal, the Auditor-General, among others?
While the Bill does not specify that its principles must be given effect to, does the statement of principles establish assumptions that might usually prevail?
The Commission feels that the Bill is framed around an ideal of the autonomous individual (individuals include entities with legal personality, such as companies). It implies a default position of absolute rights to property. Catholic Social Teaching has different emphases. It approaches persons in relation to each other, that is, in community. While recognising the rights of individuals, we are also all connected to each other. Nor does Catholic Social Teaching regard private property as an absolute right. Private property may be held to the extent compatible with the common good, and that common good is more than an accumulation of individual goods. These considerations apply, as Pope Francis emphasised, also across the generations, especially in terms of environmental sustainability.