It pointed out room for clarification and dated drafting
The New Zealand Law Society | Te Kāhui Ture o Aotearoa appeared before the Transport and Infrastructure select committee last week to identify aspects of the Civil Aviation Bill in need of further consideration.
The bill seeks to replace the current legislation with a modern platform ‘for safety, security, and economic regulation of civil aviation.’
Nick Crang and Professor Jeremy Finn addressed the select committee on behalf of the Law Society. Among others, they considered the ‘just culture’ provisions in the Bill which sought to ensure that people who self-report accidents were protected from law enforcement action.
As drafted, the bill would allow the director of civil aviation to take enforcement action if satisfied that the public interest in taking action outweighed any adverse impact it would have on further notifications.
“The term ‘public interest’ can be construed very widely and is at the director’s discretion,” Crang pointed out. “As a result, it is difficult for those people who notify incidents to predict whether the information will be used against them.”
The Law Society recommended that the bill define the term ‘public interest.’
The Law Society also recommended that the bill clarify whether the director of civil aviation had the power to issue search warrants.
“The heading of clause 289 refers to the director authorising the making of applications for search warrants,” said Finn. “However, subclause (1) states that the director may authorise a person to enter and search a place, vehicle, or other thing.
“This would effectively allow the director to authorise warrantless searches
“The select committee will need to consider whether search warrants should instead be issued under the Search and Surveillance Act 2012 to ensure judicial oversight of the process,” Finn said.
The Law Society noted the minister of transportation’s broad powers to make rules relating to civil aviation under the bill and submitted that consultation on these rules include the reasons for having made them, to better understand their impact.
The submission also asked the select committee to consider dated references to the “sex” of searchers and persons being searched in the bill.
