Matthew Dyson, James Lee and Shona Wilson Stark (eds), Fifty Years of the Law Commissions: The Dynamics of Law Reform
| DOI | 10.3366/elr.2018.0475 |
| Published date | 01 January 2018 |
| Pages | 174-176 |
| Author | |
| Date | 01 January 2018 |
2015 saw the fiftieth anniversary of the Law Commissions Act 1965 and of the establishment of Law Commissions in London and in Edinburgh. Much later, in 2007, they would be joined by a third Law Commission in Belfast although its active years were few and it is currently on life-support. In July 2015 a two-day conference was held in London to celebrate the first fifty years of the Law Commissions. This substantial book reproduces in revised form the papers presented on that occasion.
As at the conference itself, the 39 papers are organised into eight groups, some rather miscellaneous in nature: (1) Introduction; (2) The First Half-Century; (3) Institutions, Commissions, Committees, Codifiers; (4) The Many Faces of Law Reform; (5) Implementation by Statute; (6) How Law Commissions Work; (7) Courts and Commissions; and (8) Commissioning the Future. From what is a rather disparate group of papers the editors have worked hard to make a coherent whole. Connections between chapters are marked by appropriate cross-referencing, always a mark of careful editing, and repetition and overlap have been kept within reasonable bounds. The result is a lively and wide-ranging examination of fifty years of law reform.
The book is very much a view from the inside. Three-quarters of the contributors served or serve still in one of the UK Law Commissions, in most cases as a Commissioner but sometimes as a member of staff. Of the remaining ten contributors, a number have been involved in law reform bodies in other Commonwealth jurisdictions – bodies which themselves were often inspired by the UK example. Nevertheless, the book largely avoids the self-congratulation, trips down memory lane, or the refighting of old battles which such a line-up might imply. On the contrary, the extensive experience of many contributors in the business of law reform makes for a volume rich in information and insight. At the same time, however, there is a certain loss of critical distance.
As often in volumes of this kind, there is some variation in quality and ambition. Many chapters present fresh research or fresh thinking. Paul Mitchell's fascinating account of the early years of the Law Commission brings out its worries about legitimacy and the limitations of its competence. Sir Grant Hammond scours the websites and annual reports of law-reform bodies to measure comparative rates of implementation by legislation: the Australian Law Reform Commission tops the table with an implementation rate...
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