Law reform (1)

• Why is law reform needed?

  • Important to keep law under review to change it when necessary
  • Legal procedures and the law needs to adapt to social change
  • Most legislation still stands until its repealed
  • Current law that applies for assault is contained in an Act of Parliament which goes back to 1861 which uses very old language and terminology
  • New technology has led to creation of new laws such as many Road traffic Acts and Misuse of computers act 1990.
  • When the law becomes out of touch with society , it then becomes changed.
• Ways changes to the law can be made

  • Judges
  • Parliament
  • Law reform bodies (the Law Commission)
• Judicial change

  Judges help in reforming the law by adapting old decisions to new situations.

  Case law can bring some reform through development of common law (judicial precedent)
• Judicial Precedent - A decision that the judge has made in a case that people follow in future cases.
• Examples of judicial change

  R V R 1991 - House of lords stated a husband who has non consensual intercourse with his wife can be guilty of rape. The judge accepted that times have changed and so did the status of married women. Due to this the Sexual offences Act 2003 included marital rape
• judicial change

  Reforms are rarely made in practice since the judiciary is not an elected body and to remember their constitutional role which is to apply law that Parliament makes.
• Parliament

  • Most of law reform made by Parliament
  • Government has control over which law is enacted and sets out the agenda in the Kings speech at the start of the new parliamentary session.
  • Parliament can vote on government proposals and when passed become a new act of Parliament
• Parliament can reform in 4 ways:

  1. Create
  2. Repeal
  3. Consolidation
  4. Codification
• Create

  Create new law (or adapting existing ones) to meet the new needs

  When new law is made it is usually either due to public demand or from pressure by a group.
• Repeal (Remove)

  • Old and obsolete law (obsolete = Outdated)
  • Old law is taken out of the statute books
  • out of date law will stay in the statute books for a long time before it is repealed
• Consolidation

  • It brings together successive statutes on the same topic into a single act of Parliament
  • (Example - The equality act 2010 brought together 9 pieces of anti-discriminatory law into 1 new act)
• Codification

  • A particular area of law has developed over time to produce a large body of case and law and statute.
  • A new statute is made to bring together all the rules on that subject in 1 place - that becomes the starting point (example - Police and criminal evidence act 1984)
• arguments for codification

  Necessary to make law user-friendly

  Helping the public know the law

  and bring an element of certainty
• Arguments against codification

  It makes the law too rigid
• These reforms can happen together

  
  

  example - Public order act 1996 = made to deal with problems (football hooliganism) at the time and repealed out of date offences