Law Reform Flashcards
(13 cards)
Explain
Influences on Law Reform
Manifesto Promise
Private Members Bill
Human Rights Act 1998, Abortion Act 1987
Apart of LR - Influence on Law
Manifesto
Parties in a election, will create their manifesto, which can get made into law, if they win the election.
Human Rights Act 1998 - Fulfilled Labour's 1997 Manifesto
Private Members Bill
Individual MP’s proposal that becomes law with enough support.
Abortion Act 1967 - Introduced by MP David Steele, become law.
Explain
Influences on Law Reform
Public Inquiries
Emergency Situations
The Cullen Report, Anti-Terrorism Crome and Security Act 2001
Apart of LR - Influence on Law
Public Inquires
Established in response to serious incident, which caused significant public concern.
Public Inqueries create a report on the incident, and proposed changes that could be applied.
The Cullen Report - Public Inquiry for Dunblane Massacre, led to Firearms Ammendment Act 1997
Emergency Situations
Emergency response to worldwide events can lead to emergency legislation.
Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 - Emergency response to World Trade Centre terrorist attack in 2001.
Describe
Law Commission in General
S.3 Law Commission Act 1996
Apart of LR - Law Commission
- Only full-time, permenant law reform body.
- Consists of One chairperson and four outher commissioners
S.3 Law Commission Act 1996 - Main role is to keep law under review and recommend reform.
Explain
What do the Law Commission Do
Repeal
Consolidation
Codification
Apart of LR - Law Commission
Repeal - Remove out-of-date law.
Consolidation - Brings existing laws on particular area in lots of acts, into one new act.
Codification - Puts all laws, legislation and common law on a particular topic into one source
Explain
How do Law Commission reform?
Refer
Research
Respond
Apart of LR - Law Commission
Refer - Lord Chancellor, refers or asks for a area of law to be reviewed by Law Commission.
Research - Research current law on area, create a consolidation paper outlining their findings.
Respond - After response to research, they produce a final report, that outlines proposals on how to change or improve law in this area.
Evaluate
Change
- Some Law Infleunce can lead to significant changes.
- What do pressure groups do? How so?
- What can negotiators do in lobbying?
Apart of LR - Advantages
- Apply pressure to an MP, by highlighting issues to Parliament, with the intention to encourage significant changes.
- Allows access to a MP to speak to them about any reforms or ideas, and the MP is more likely to listen here.
Evaluate
Highlight Opinion
- Law Influence can help to highlight public opinion on concern.
- What can campaigns do? What can Parliament do after seeing these?
- What made MP David Steele pass his bill? What did Parliament do?
Apart of LR - Advantages
- Raise awareness on a prevelant issue or injustice currently in society, and mobilise people to speak out, Parliament can see these and the public opinion of these campaigns, and make them law.
- The public opinion at the time surronding abortion, which then made Parliament agree and make the bill law, as public opinion favoured Abortion.
Evaluate
Knowledge
- Law can be reformed by influence groups that have special knowledge on the law to change.
- What are often members of a influence? What can they advise to Parliament?
- What are also pressure groups? What do they help with?
Apart of LR - Advantages
- Members usually apart of Law Influences, are experts in the area of law, and can advise Parliament on detailed and technical ideas for any changes.
- Often experts as well, they can do a lot of research, and help Parliament with accuracy of the law
Evaluate
Unbiased
- Law Influences are often independent from Parliament, which leads to unbiased opinions.
- What does being independent mean for these bodies?
- What are pressure groups more focused on?
Apart of LR - Advantage
- No influence, so their suggestions are free from bias or political interference.
- Pressure groups, are not so focused on the politics side, but are more focused on their cause, which gives them a impartial view.
Evaluate
Not Representative
- The Law Influences are not always representative of public opinion.
- What do they only promote? Any alternative view?
- What can be the case for pressure groups and their supporters?
Apart of LR - Disadvantage
- Their own interests, in only their applicable way, without trying to show an alternate or even a balanced view for reform.
- Pressure groups can be fairly small or unknown, so majority of public might not back their cause, and they’ll struggle to get attention.
Evaluate
No Change
- The Law Influences do not lead to any actual change.
- What does P lack? So what can they do instead?
- What method is largely unsuccesful? What does this lead to?
Apart of LR - DIsadvantage
- A lack of time or interest in the proposed cause to reform law on, so thye may just completely ignore the cause all together without giving any midn to it.
- Lobbying, especially if the person isn’t a professional will fail a lot of times, as MP’s may be apathetic to being preached to or the cause. So their views aren’t always considered when it comes to changing law.
Evaluate
Waste of Time/Money
- Many Law Influences are a waste of time or money as they can lead to no change.
- How long to produce suggestions? How expensive can they be? What can P do even after all this?
- Why is lobbying a waste of time?
Apart of LR - Disadvantage
- Several years to produce suggestions for their cause, and a lot of money to bring about the campaigning, all for Parliament to easily ignore it, at any time and not bring about your change.
- Unless professional, and even then, very low success rate so ends up being a waste of time and money.
Evaluate
Knee-Jerk Reaction.
- An influencing campaign can lead to a knee-jerk reaction from Parliament on issue.
- What happens when responding to emergency world events?
- What was the problem with the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991?
Dangerous Dogs Act 1991
Apart of LR - Disadvantage
- In emergency situations, an act doesn’t go through full scrutiny, so ends up being rushed which leads to a lot of errors being present in the act due to the rush in creation.
- The Dangerous Dogs Act 1991, was made after a number of dog attacks, however the law was rushed and didn’t tackle the issue of dogs attacks correctly, and was more harm for innocent dogs, and didn’t even reduce any attacks.
