Two weeks ago, the New Zealand Legislation website got a new look, with faster, simpler ways to find and view legislation. It’s really easy to use and search.
Try it out here: http://www.legislation.govt.nz
The website provides Acts, Bills, Supplementary Order Papers, and Statutory Regulations, and links to Deemed Regulations. It is owned and updated by the Parliamentary Counsel Office.
In connection with a recent Law Library of Congress event which I hope to report on more fully soon, the Library has released an excellent new publication in PDF form, 
Translation of National Legislation into English (click on the title to download). This guide, prepared by the staff of the Law Library’s Global Legal Research Center, is a reference tool for locating translated materials from thirteen nations: Afghanistan, Argentina, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Mexico, and the Russian Federation; international organizations; and international courts and tribunals .
This week a report produced jointly by the Law Commission for England & Wales (LCEW) and the Scottish Law Commission recommends repealing more than 800 pieces of legislation dating from the 14th century onwards in order, according to LCEW chairman Sir James Munby, “to simplify and modernise our law, making it more intelligible. It saves time and costs for lawyers and others who need to know what the law actually is, and makes it easier for citizens to access justice. We are committed to ridding the statute book of meaningless provisions from days gone by and making sure our laws are relevant to the modern world.”
Here’s where the fun starts, though – some of those laws include:
Fair Trials International and five other NGOs (Amnesty International, the Open Society Justice Initiative, JUSTICE, the European Criminal Bar Association and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties) have criticised the UK and Irish Governments for their stance on a new law on access to legal advice.
Read the Fair Trials article here.
Read the European Directive of 20 October 2010 on the right to interpretation and translation in criminal proceedings by clicking here.
From Words to Deeds: translation & the law 
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