The Regulatory Standards Bill was introduced to Parliament in early 2011 and is identical, save in name, to the Regulatory Responsibility Bill recommended in late 2009 by the Regulatory Responsibility Taskforce. The Bill aims to improve the quality of lawmaking in New Zealand. The scheme of the Bill is to affirm eleven "principles of responsible regulation" and to adopt three mechanisms to help ensure that legislation conforms to those principles: a certification regime, a jurisdiction for judicial declarations of incompatibility, and an interpretive direction. Parliament should not enact the Bill. The argument for enactment, made out in most detail in the Report of the Taskforce, is unconvincing. The principles that the Bill affirms are in part unorthodox and unsound and it is in any case unwise to enact a vague code for good lawmaking. The Bill's invitation to the courts to review the quality of legislation is contrary to democratic principle and the separation of powers. The interpretive direction threatens the rule of law. The certification regime may distort lawmaking and politicise the public service. The Regulatory Standards Bill is a legislative proposal that lacks sound foundations and which departs sharply from settled constitutional principle — its enactment would be reckless.