ASSEMBLY LAW AND PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE

STATEMENT TO

ASSEMBLY, No. 1965

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

DATED: JUNE 3, 1996

      The Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee reports favorably Assembly Bill No. 1965.

      Assembly Bill No. 1965 amends section 3 of P.L.1977, c.85 (C.34:13A-6) to correct a printing error.

      Five lines of existing statutory language were inexplicably omitted from the copy of Assembly Bill No. 3296 which the Governor signed into law as P.L.1995, c.425 on January 10, 1996. One of those omitted lines included the sentence: "The cost of factfinding shall be borne by the commission," which was to be removed by amendment from the statute. Since the removal of that sentence by amendment constitutes a substantive change in the law, the printing error cannot be corrected by the Office of Legislative Services under R.S.1:3-1 and must, therefore, be addressed by remedial legislation. Assembly Bill No. 1965 makes the necessary corrections to the section, replacing the omitted language and removing, by amendment, the sentence referring to the costs of factfinding being borne by the commission, as the Legislature had intended in Assembly Bill No. 3296 of 1995.

      Under R.S.1:3-1, the Office of Legislative Services, through its Legislative Counsel, is authorized to make non-substantive corrections in the text of any law, with the concurrence of the Attorney General.