Law Reform - OCR A Level Law

What is meant be law reform

When we try to fix/make the law better by changing it

Why do we need law reform

Law may be outdated or unclear.

There may be people calling for change.

What things/people/groups can influence law making and reform

Political influences.

Public/media.

Pressure groups.

Who created the law commission

Law Commissions Act 1965

Who are the law commission?

The chair.

The four other commissioners.

Chief Executive + personnel.

One or Two Non-Executive Board Members

The chair

Either a high court or appeal judge appointed to the commission by the lord chancellor and security of state for justice for up to 3 years

The other four Commissioners

Non-Executive Board members who would provide support, independent challenge and expertise of issues or governance and strategic management.

What do the law commission do?

S3 of Law Commissions Act 1965 says the law commissions duty is to review all area of law to make systematic reform by;

- Codifying the law

- Consolidating the law

- Repealing the law

Codifying the law

Bringing together all the laws on a topic into one complete code. For instance, the Law Commissions published their first draft (criminal code, which tied together lots of areas of criminal law) however the government has not implemented this full code.

Consolidating the law

Bringing a law that is spread across many cases and statutes into one single act. E.g. the non fatal offences draft bill in 1998.

Repealing a law

Getting rid of obsolete law/law that doesn't need to exist. More then 3000 acts have been repealed.

How do the law commission make reforms

Choosing an issue.

Research.

Consultation.

Report.

Choosing an issue

An area of law is either referred to the LC by the lord chancellor in behalf of the government.

OR

The LC may choose a topic themselves as long as they receive government approval.

Research

Look at cases, statutes and academic articles to understand the current state of law.

Consultation

After research, they publish a consultation paper. This will contain a description of the current law, explain the problems and suggest options for reforms. People respond to this paper with their views.

Report

Based on the responses the LC then make a proposal for reform. This will usually contain a draft bill that lays out the exact way the new law should be formed. Parliament would need to actually pass the bill for it to be real law.

Success rates

Reports implemented in the LC's first ten years; 80%

In the second ten years; 50%

in 1990; 0%

New measures to improve

2009: the Law Commissions Act 2009 amended the 1965 act so that the lord chancellor must report to parliament once a year to follow up on reports and get reasons as to why the implementation has not happened.

2010: since 2010 there is also a special parliamentary procedure to implement LC reports that are 'uncontroversial' (6 acts have passed this way)

Advantages of Law Commission

-Experts

-Consultation

-Independence

-Can make widespread reform

Experts (adv)

They have a wide variety of knowledge between them with a deep amount of knowledge on both theoretical and practical problems of law.

Consultation (adv)

They have a wide variety of information about the subjects and are informed about the topic so they know who i will effect and how.

Independence (adv)

They are an independent party from the government meaning they wont be pressured to do or ignore an issue, instead work on whats actually a real problem.

Can make widespread reform (adv)

They can look at an entire area of law and change it in one go, making it easy to modernise the law very quickly then slowly piece by piece.

Disadvantages of Law Commision

-Not always listened to

-Focuses on substantive law

-Poor implementation

-Reform can be made without LC

Not always listened to (Dis)

Parliament don't always listen to the law commission, meaning there is less of a point of having them.

Focuses on substantive law (Dis)

This means the law commission doesn't always work on the same issues as parliament (e.g. finance, healthcare, budget etc) meaning parliament is less likely to listen to them.

Poor implementation (Dis)

The way the government implement the law, when they do, they don't always implement it in the way the law commission suggests. Which is turn makes the law less satisfactory.

Reform can be made without LC (Dis)

Sometimes the government makes changes without consulting the LC which can result in bad law.