Impact Statements MUST be binding --- mere recommendation isn’t enough

4) Integration Legislative impact statements, and in particular HRISs, must be prepared as an integral part of the policy process and not as an after-the-fact formality. That is the hope of Elizabeth Kelly, a senior ACT bureaucrat and member of the consultative committee on the ACT Human Rights Act. She argues that the statement of compatibility will ‘institutionalise human rights considerations at the beginning of the policy process’ and observes that ‘although this work will be invisible to practitioners and the public, in many respects it is where the biggest impact of the Act will be felt’.131 Some mechanism more concrete than a mere recommendation that policy officers consult the Bill of Rights Unit or Human Rights Office during the policy formulation process132 is desirable to ensure that human rights considerations are institutionalised. In the United Kingdom and New Zealand, the mechanism comes from instructions issued by the Cabinet Office. The New Zealand Cabinet Handbook requires that at the policy approval stage Ministers certify to Cabinet that their legislative proposals comply with relevant rights standards.133 In the United Kingdom, the British Cabinet Office Guidance to Departments requires that, at the policy approval stage, ‘a general assessment’ of compatibility is provided to Ministers; and that once the Bill is drafted, ‘a more formal compatibility document is prepared by departmental lawyers in consultation with Law Officers and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. This document is then passed to the Cabinet Legislation Joint Committee and ultimately forms the basis of the s 19 statement in each House’.134