NORTH CAROLINA GENERAL ASSEMBLY
1979 SESSION
CHAPTER 1075
HOUSE BILL 1308
AN ACT TO CREATE A NORTH CAROLINA GENERAL STATUTES CODE COMMISSION AND TO RECODIFY THE GENERAL STATUTES OF NORTH CAROLINA BY 1981 AND CODIFY SUBSEQUENT ACTS OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY.
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
Section 1. Creation of Commission. There is hereby created a Commission on Code Recodification (hereafter referred to as "the Commission") which shall be a temporary commission within the Department of Justice with the powers and duties set forth herein.
Sec. 2. Members of the Commission. The Commission shall be composed of:
(1) the Attorney General or his designate, ex officio, who shall serve as Chairman of the Commission and shall be a voting member of the Commission;
(2) two trial court judges, ex officio, one of whom shall be a Superior Court Judge and one a District Court Judge, appointed by the Governor, who shall be voting members;
(3) one judge or Justice of the Appellate Division, ex officio, appointed by the Chief Justice, who shall be a voting member;
(4) two members of the Senate appointed by the Lieutenant Governor for a term coincident with their terms as members of the Senate, and two members of the House of Representatives appointed by the Speaker of the House for a term coinciding with their terms as members of the House of Representatives; and
(5) two members who shall be active practicing attorneys, appointed by the President of the North Carolina State Bar. Members of the Commission shall serve until the expiration of the Commission or until their successors qualify. The Commission may, by majority vote, remove any member of the Commission for chronic absenteeism, misfeasance, malfeasance or other good cause. Vacancies shall be filled for the unexpired term by the persons authorized to make the original appointments.
Sec. 3. Compensation and expenses. The members of the Commission shall receive no compensation for attendance at meetings, except a per diem expense reimbursement. Legislative members of the Commission shall be reimbursed for subsistence and travel expenses at the rates set out in G.S. 120-3.1 from funds made available to the Commission. Members of the Commission who are not officers or employees of the State shall receive reimbursement for subsistence and travel expenses at rates set out in G.S. 138-5 from funds made available to the Commission. Members of the Commission who are officers or employees of the State shall be reimbursed for travel and subsistence at the rates set out in G.S. 138-6 from funds made available to the Commission.
Sec. 4. Assuming duties. Within 30 days after the passage of this act, the Commission shall meet and begin duties assigned to the Commission.
Sec. 5. Authority to enter into contracts. The Attorney General, pursuant to authority vested in him by Article 2 of Chapter 114 of the General Statutes, the authority vested in him by G.S. 164-9 and G.S. 164-10, and this act is authorized and empowered to enter into and execute on behalf of the State of North Carolina contracts for the recodification, revision, republication and indexing of the statutory law of general applicability of the State of North Carolina. It is the intent of the General Assembly to give to the Attorney General wide latitude in negotiating the contract in order to take advantage of modern innovations in statute codification, updating and indexing. The Attorney General shall exercise his best efforts to obtain the best possible code for the State of North Carolina.
Sec. 6. Duties of Commission. The Commission shall coordinate the recodification using the facilities and research capacities of the Division of Legislative Drafting of the General Assembly, the Division of Legislative Drafting and Codification of Statutes of the Department of Justice and the publisher. The Commission shall have supervision and control over the recodification after a contract is entered into and shall have authority to accept or reject as satisfactory the drafts and manuscripts of the recodification. The recodification shall not be recognized as the statutory law of this State unless and until approved and enacted by the General Assembly of North Carolina.
Sec. 7. Contents of recodification. The recodification shall contain the full text of all operative and effective sections of the revision of the laws of North Carolina enacted by Chapter 33 of the 1943 Session Laws, said revision being known as the General Statutes of North Carolina, as modified by all operative and effective amendments thereto, and all operative and effective session laws of a general and permanent nature enacted since the publication of the General Statutes of North Carolina down through the end of the 1979 Regular Session (2nd Session 1980) of the General Assembly.
Every act or part of an act of a permanent nature which affects 10 or more counties shall be deemed to be "general" for purposes of this section, but the Commission, in its discretion, may cause an act or part of an act affecting fewer counties to be codified and published.
The recodification shall contain such indices, tables, and ancillaries as the Commission shall deem to be desirable and practicable to include.
Sec. 8. Copyright to statutes. Copyright to the statutes as so recodified shall be taken by the publisher in the name of the State of North Carolina and be owned by it. The Attorney General shall have the authority to grant licenses under the copyright.
Sec. 9. Report of Commission to General Assembly. The Commission is authorized and directed to report and recommend to the General Assembly such legislation as it finds in making up the recodification as may be necessary or advisable to:
(1) eliminate, modify or repeal obsolete laws;
(2) clarify ambiguous laws; or
(3) resolve conflicts in or between laws.
The report and recommendations of the Commission concerning these matters shall be prepared, printed and bound and presented to the 1981 Session of the General Assembly with the legislative edition of the recodification required to be submitted as hereafter provided.
Sec. 10. Printing of Recodified Statutes; distribution of new code; termination of Commission. As soon as the work of recodification is completed, the Commission shall cause to be printed and published no fewer than 600 copies of such recodification as a legislative edition, to be used for examination, consideration and action by the members of the General Assembly of 1981. Such legislative edition shall set forth all the general public laws of North Carolina, together with any supplemental or implementing legislation recommended by the division as essential to make a complete and clear statement of said laws, in such form and with such arrangement, numbering system, tables of contents, indices and editorial aids as said division shall determine.
As soon as the report of the Commission and legislative edition have been printed, one copy thereof shall be placed in the hands of each of the Justices of the Supreme Court, each judge of the Court of Appeals, each judge of the Superior Court, the Governor, the head of each principal department of the State government, the members of the General Statutes Commission, and, immediately upon their election, or as soon thereafter as possible, the members of the General Assembly of the Regular Session of 1981.
The Commission shall go out of existence upon the submission of its report and the legislative edition as herein provided.
Sec. 11. There is appropriated from the General Fund to the Department of Justice the sum of fourteen thousand five hundred dollars ($14,500) for fiscal year 1979-80 and the sum of fourteen thousand five hundred dollars ($14,500) for fiscal year 1980-81 for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of this act.
There is further hereby appropriated the sum of fourteen thousand four hundred dollars ($14,400) for the year 1979-80 and a like sum for the fiscal year 1980-81 to the Department of Justice to defray the per diem allowances to the members of the Commission.
Sec. 12. This act shall become effective July 1, 1979.
In the General Assembly read three times and ratified, this the 8th day of June, 1979.