Influences of Law Reform Upon Parliament

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Influences of Law Reform Upon Parliament

There are many influences operating on parliament before and during

the legislative process. Explain and evaluate any three of these

influences, giving examples of how parliament has been persuaded to

introduce legislation.

Law reform means making a change to the law by improving what had

existed before. Law reform can be achieved by updating the law,

codification of the law and consolidation of statutes. There are many

different influences upon parliament for law reform. Three of these

influences are Law commissions, Royal commissions and pressure groups.

The law commission is the independent body established by the Law

Commission Act 1965 to keep the law of England and Wales under review

and recommend reforms when they are needed. The law commission is

important because it is the only full-time publicly funded body

established for the purpose of law reform. The law commission consists

of five commissioners plus support staff. The chairman is a high court

judge who is appointed for a term of three years. The other four

commissioners are solicitors, barristers or teachers of law. Each of

them is appointed by the Lord Chancellor for a term of five years and

may serve two terms. The law commission is an advisory body which

makes proposals for law reform but they also work on consolidation of

statutes and statute law revision. The law commission may select a

range of projects after consulting with bodies such as the bar, the

law society and academic lawyers and then produce a programme of

projects. A new programme is produced every four to five years. The

law commission decides what to put into its programme by considering

the importance of the issues, availability of resources and the

suitability of the issue. Teams of lawyers and research assistants

each headed by a law commissioner consider the reforms needed. Areas

of law are researched and a consultation paper is published with

proposals for reform. Anyone interested can respond and if a change to

the law is proposed a draft bill is added to the report and put before

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