The Varieties of Doing Law Reform

First, a quick plug for the LCO’s Public Lecture this evening at 5:30 in Convocation Hall at Osgoode Hall, 130 Queen Street West. It’s all about the complex relationship between law reform commissions and governments and delivered by a man who has been close to the action as a commissioner with the New South Wales Law Reform Commission for many years, Michael Tilbury.

And tomorrow is the Symposium: registration at 8:15 am, starting at 8:45 am, going until 4:30 pm. Lunch included. This is a chance to engage with people who have written about, influenced and engaged in law reform of various types.

Both are free! More info on the LCO website.

Now, one of the purposes of this Symposium was to highlight the many ways that law reform is done. Of course, right now, my favourite is the standing law reform commission, of which there are some 60 or so worldwide, of various shapes, sizes and outlooks. But as many Slawyers know first hand, there are many other ways to carry out law reform or, more to the point, to try to get the law reformed.

Lawyers may hope to reform the law for their client when they litigate a case and sometimes this might even be because of the principle of the thing. (When I taught first year constitutional law, I would give my students a list of cases where various legislative provisions had been declared unconstitutional, to let them know that often the law changed only because someone was trying to avoid the consequences of their actions.) And courts engage in law reform when they render these decisions and not only in the big Charter cases that sometimes create a fuss about activist judges.

Community legal clinics often consider law reform part of the their job. They see that several clients are raising the same issue and that more than a one by one approach is required. Coalitions may be started expressly for the purpose of changing the law or bringing new laws into being. Both of these will be the topic of discussion tomorrow. And, of course, governments may actually initiate law reform and not merely respond to what courts say or other actors press for, and they may do it in-house or through expert commissions or task forces or commissions of inquiry.

Someone once said that law reform commissions are merely one “in a crowded field” of law reformers and he is absolutely right. So the real question (for another day) is what is the best forum for achieving a particular kind of law reform? Time, focus, expertise, the need for witnesses, and other factors all influence the answer to that question. Successful law reform requires asking it, though.