New Zealand Order oF Merit question.?

Our last prime minister, Helen Clark, has just been made a member of the NZ Order of Merit. She was a good prime minister and she deserves it. It's limited to 20 living people, so if the Dalai Lama, Mother Theresa and Florence Nightingale were alive and well here, they'd have to wait their turn, until somebody croaked. If there isn't a single deserving person alive, do they still automatically fill all 20 places, even if it means giving the honour to a complete ********?