Enhancing Accessibility: An Objective Assessment of the Availability, Navigability and Understandability of Legislation

Abstract

Accessibility of legislation in New Zealand has been widely impacted since the establishment of the New Zealand Legislation website, which allows free access to primary legislation and some secondary legislation. This paper explores the three factors that are included within the umbrella term of accessibility: availability of legislation, navigability of legislation and understandability of legislation. Availability of legislation is examined through the provision of primary and secondary legislation and the impact of the Legislation Bill on the provision of secondary legislation. Navigability of legislation is examined through the process of finding amendments on the New Zealand Legislation website within the particular piece of legislation. Finally, understandability is studied in terms of readability and whether objectively, legislation has become easier to read from 1841-2018. A series of readability tests have been conducted over five different time periods where significant reprints occurred in New Zealand in order to establish trends and determine whether there has been an improvement in readability over time.