The Short Title of this Act shall be “The Reprint of Statutes Act, 1878.”

It shall be lawful for the Governor to issue his Commission to three persons, one being a Judge of the Supreme Court, constituting such persons Commissioners for preparing a new edition of such statutes, and from time to time, in case of the death, refusal, or incapacity to act of any of the said Commissioners, to appoint some other person to act in the stead of such Commissioner.

The Governor may also appoint some fit person to be Secretary to the said Commissioners.

The Judge to be appointed shall be President of the Commission, and shall preside at the meetings of the Commissioners; each such meeting shall consist of not less than two Commissioners.

The Commissioners may employ such clerical assistance as they, from time to time, may find necessary.

The Commissioners are hereby fully authorized and empowered to prepare and arrange for publication the said edition, omitting all such enactments and parts thereof as have expired, been repealed, or had their effect; and in the said edition the Commissioners are hereby authorized to omit mere formal and introductory words, and all enactments repealing any matter as well as the matter repealed, and the Schedules of all enactments repealed.

The Commissioners may include in the said edition such enactments of the Imperial Parliament in force in this colony as, from their general interest and importance, the Commissioners may think it desirable should be so included.

It shall not be necessary to publish in the said edition any enactments of a temporary character, nor any enactments of merely a local or personal nature.

The Commissioners shall procure from the Government Printer estimates of the expenses of printing and publishing one thousand copies of such edition, and shall submit the same for the consideration and approval of the Governor; and such edition, when arranged and prepared for publication, shall be transmitted by the said Commissioners to the Government Printer to print the same, if thereto authorized by the Governor.

Copies of the said edition, if purporting to be printed under the authority of the New Zealand Government by the Government Printers for the time being, shall be admitted as evidence thereof respectively by all Courts, Judges, Justices, Commissioners, and other officers and persons judicially acting, and upon all occasions whatsoever, without any proof being given that such copies were so printed.

In respect of enactments of a public and general nature passed by the Legislature of New Zealand, the copies of the said edition, purporting to be printed as aforesaid, shall in all Courts and upon all occasions whatsoever be taken, deemed, and held to be primâ facie evidence that they contain the only lawful enactments of the aforesaid Legislature of a public and general nature in force in this colony, from the date of the first and up to the date of the last enactment inserted in the said copies.

It shall be lawful for the Governor to appoint such honorarium to be made to the Commissioners, and such sum to be paid to the Secretary to be employed by the said Commissioners, as he may deem a reasonable remuneration for their respective services; which sums, together with all other necessary charges and expenses incurred in carrying out the provisions of this Act, shall be paid by the Colonial Treasurer out of any moneys appropriated by the General Assembly for that purpose.