Law Reform Flashcards
Law Reform - Law Commission
Law Commission is a law reform body that is independent (no political influence), statutory and is made up of a team of ex judges and top lawyers. They can decide to review and area of law and publish to the gov for suggestions, gov may ask them to review an area of law
The gov have the ultimate say and then parliament gets to vote on it
A&D of Law Reform
A -> brings change
D -> If not done properly, it may contradict something that is there already
- May completely defeat the purpose and complicate things
Main reasons for law reform
-> The law needs to adapt to the changes in society, needed to clear up confused law, save legal fees
-> This may require new laws to be passed/old ones to be cancelled e.g. taking your own life meant your property couldn’t be inherited by your family (no longer the case)
->The government has ultimate control of the law reform but there are other influences too:
- pressure groups (they will only be successful if their agenda/wish is acceptable to the government)
- Law Commission (government body, to review the law and see if it needs to be updated) Government will only adopt suggestions from the law commission if there is popularity/public support
- judgements (judges will make a point in the obiter where they will suggest to parliament to change/adjust the law) If this is an area where there is no law and there has been a judgement the gov may decide to step in and make a law where there is this gap
-> we need law reform to clear up confused law (which creates expense), simpler law saves legal fees
Parliament whip sentence - your party will tell you how to vote
LC focuses on:
- keep under review all of the law
- development and reform of the law
- codification (writing down proposals for new laws or clarifying old ones
- repealing obscure or no longer relevant laws (if you assault a clergyman you can go to prison, all get treated the same) Simony - practice where bishops (higher authority) would sell titles to ordinary ppl to become priests/bishops w/o having to train (used to be an offence) however it will come under fraud it isn’t its own law - no longer a stand alone offence
Codification
Putting it down in writing clearly (so it can be understood) e.g. Draft Criminal Code 1985
Draft criminal code - incorporated the main general principle of criminal law but has never been implemented by gov
In 2008 - LC stated that it would now concentrate on smaller areas of code in the better hope that gov would be prepared to make these kind of reforms
In 2015/26 - narrowed down even further, only concentrate on areas of law where statutes are incoherent and codification would bring practical benefit
Consolidation (gather things together)
Combining the law from several acts of parliament into one act
Needed because there might be several parts of different statutes that spell out the entire law
It makes the law easier to understand (more accessible)
Constant changes to the law on criminal justice and sentencing are a gd example
2017 - LC published a new draft sentencing code
Repeal (to delete/getting rid of)
Certain areas of law go out of date and need to be cancelled
It can only be achieved by a vote in parliament
The Great Repeal Bill is aimed at cancelling the European communities act that took the UK into the EU in 1973, this will be the final step towards Brexit
A&D of reform through the LC
A -> research by legal experts
-> non political
-> consultation before finalising proposals
-> whole areas of law can be considered
-> if parliament decides to act on its advice and reforms whole areas of the law (makes easier to understand)
-> reform simplifies/modernises the law
D -> parliament can be slow to enacting LC reports
-> sometimes a lack of parliamentary time
-> whilst the gov might agree in principle with reform of the law it may not follow all the recommendations and this can lead to problems
(can over complicate)
Royal Commissions (big committee, may include politicians and lawyers)
-> job is to investigate particular points of law
-> none since 2000 (expensive and take a long time)
-> have sometimes led to changes in the law e.g. Police Procedure 1981 led to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1981 (PACE)
Reviews by judges
-> judges can sometimes be asked to lead an investigation into specific areas of law
-> Woolf Committee on civil justice 1999
-> Lord Bridge, 2015 review on online courts due by 2020
-> business ppl can also sometimes be asked to commission reports
Search warrants
- Criminal law
- 40,000 search warrants are issued in England and Wales every year.
However there are problems with this for example error meaning 79% of search warrants are defective warrants and are going after false allegations, also inefficient as it takes around 3 weeks to get a search warrant which could lead to the loss of evidence or further crimes.
Inadequate safeguards when electronics are seized and could be irrelevant but personal information of electronics sometimes without statutory protection. Consultation paper was published in 2018 and experiences gained which led to the final report. - Law commission has given 64 recommendations to make this law simpler, fairer and efficient. The government needs to review and consider the recommendations in the final report from the law commission.
- I think that the final report will be viewed by the government and will go ahead as is very crucial to get search warrants more efficiently and not wasting officers time with false allegations. Also protects the public with safeguarding issues and not oversharing unnecessary information.
