How Does the Law Commission Work? – Selection and Criteria

In this blog post, we will be considering the Law Commission – what it does, how it finds new projects and the criteria used to select these projects. However, we will start by looking at what the Law Commission is. In essence, it is a statutory independent body that aims to make the law of England and Wales fairer, update it as necessary and simplify it where possible. It was created by the Law Commissions Act 1965 to review law and make proposals for reform.

The Law Commission’s primary aims are to make the law fair, modern, simple and cost-effective, as discussed above. Many statutes are written in archaic language that is difficult for the average person to understand. Some statutes are unnecessary or outdated, so they need to be repealed to clarify the law and make it fair.

In addition, a lot of law is common law, meaning it comes from decided cases rather than statutes. This means that you have to trawl through a multitude of decided cases, rather than them being collected in one document. The Law Commission proposes reforms that would create new statutes to put all of these together. It can also suggest bringing together multiple smaller statutes to make a single document.

To do this, the Law Commission undertakes various research projects and consultations. It can then use these to make recommendations to Parliament. A key strength of the Law Commission is that it is an independent body, so it can present whichever projects it decides are the most important and urgent. It is not influenced by which political party is in power, as this could lead to a change in priorities after every election, with some areas of law never even being brought before Parliament.

Selection

To select new projects to research and suggest improvements to, the Law Commission will start by gathering a document of potential areas of law they could examine. This forms the basis of their programme of law reform, which will then be used to plan their work. This programme is refreshed every three years, but some work will be carried across, as many projects take longer than this.

Consultation

When putting together the proposed projects that are suitable for law reform, the Law Commission will invite consultation on them. This is important to make sure that there is a good balance of projects and that the Law Commission knows about any important details that could influence their decision. It can also help to build a complete image of the proposed area of law and how it would be impacted by any potential reforms.

However, before the consultation process even begins, the Law Commission is required by the Law Commissions Act 1965 to present the proposals to the Lord Chancellor for consideration, where they must receive approval before the Law Commission can undertake more detailed work. If approval is given, they can then start to circulate a formal proposal for consultation to a wide variety of groups.

So, who are these groups? They are interested parties that would be in some way affected by reform to the proposed area. These are wide parameters and can include judges, the relevant government departments, lawyers, voluntary sectors, business sectors and the general public. This should give a range of views that can offer both an inside and an outside perspective on how the law is currently working and how it could be improved by reform.

Criteria

There are certain criteria that the Law Commission will consider before selecting a new project. The three criteria that they use are importance, suitability and resources. We will look at each of these in turn.

The first of these, importance, is exactly what it sounds like. It considers how poor the existing law is, focusing on how fair, modern, simple and cost-effective it is. This can help determine how urgent reform is. It also asks what the potential benefits of any reform would be and how valuable this would be in the long run.

The second, suitability, looks at whether it fits with the Law Commission’s aims and if the Law Commission is the best option for review. There are other ways for the law to be revised and the independence of the Law Commission might not always be needed or helpful if it could be reformed quicker through other channels.

Finally, the Law Commission considers the resources available to them. This can be the funding available, what experience the Commissioners and staff have or the time they have for projects.

Wrapping Up

I hope that this helps you understand how the Law Commission works. In my next blog post, we will be looking at the stages of law reform, so come back in two weeks for that!

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