Time for change


I joined the Law Commission in 1972 and spent 13 years there. They were frustrating years because, for most of them, the Thatcher government was in power and it displayed a marked disinclination to implement the commission's recommendations. From your article on the commission (see [2007] Gazette, 26 April, 22), it seems that the situation has not changed as much as one might have hoped.



After I left, I wrote a short book, A Lament for the Law Commission, published in 1987. In it, I proposed a remedy to this problem. A government that wanted to ensure the commission's potential was realised to the full would at least give a report, once made, a fair wind. If any further consultation were needed, it would not be carried out over the Law Commission's head: the commission would be invited to help in drafting the consultation papers and would have an opportunity of commenting on the outcome.



Then, perhaps, as seems originally to have been intended, parliamentary time should be available for the consideration of the proposals - and, if they were supported, for their passage through both Houses.



But since parliamentary time is in short supply, it would be worth considering whether law reform Bills could be given a quicker passage through Parliament, as consolidation Bills already are. A shortened procedure might involve the appointment of a standing committee, in which all political parties would be represented, and to which all Law Commission Bills would be referred. The committee would first consider whether it was content for the Bill in question to follow the shortened procedure, on the grounds that it was sufficiently apolitical to deserve such treatment. If so, the shortened procedure would apply; if not, the normal procedure would have to be followed.



Richard Oerton, Bridgwater, Somerset