Monday, May 26, 2008



Removing the royal

Two years ago, monarchists were outraged when the government did away with the archaic title of "Queens' Counsel", replacing it instead with the more appropriate "senior counsel". Now they look to be about to make another such move, with the Law Commission recommending in its report on commissions of inquiry that we do away with Royal Commissions.

Actually, that's an exaggeration - they simply recommended that a new type of inquiry - "public inquiries" replace the old commissions of inquiry and royal commissions. They likely gave no thought whatsoever to the name, simply choosing one which reflected the purpose of such inquiries (to cover areas of great interest to the public). That's how relevant the monarchy is to modern New Zealand: we don't even bother to think about removing it from our language.

Now, if only we'd do the same for our government...