Law Commission

Law Commission, in England and Wales, body established in 1965 to report to the Lord Chancellor (the senior lawyer in government) with proposals for the reform of the law (Scotland has its own Law Commission dealing with Scottish law). The Commission is composed of a chair and four members, appointed for a term of five years each, and chosen from among judges, barristers, solicitors, and university law teachers. The Commission produces working papers on matters in which it has an interest, and invites consultations from interested parties—predominantly the rest of the legal profession. It then produces a full report, together with a draft bill, for the Lord Chancellor, and the government may take up the proposal; if it does so the Bill will usually be amended, but much of the Commission’s drafting survives unscathed.

The Commission’s areas of concern are those parts of the law that it considers inconsistent, difficult, outdated, or impractical. It aims to deal with the more technical legal issues, and not to concern itself with controversial policy, which is a matter for Parliament. The distinction is not straightforward, and radical proposals have been introduced particularly in matrimonial law questions.

Possibly due to the technicality of much of the Commission’s work, which does not commend itself to the interest of Parliament or government, many of its reports have been left unimplemented. It is common for individual recommendations to find their way into law, but rare for an entire draft bill to be enacted. Litigants may rely on the Commission’s recommendations when arguing cases before appellate courts: for example, in the 2000 case of Heil v. Rankin the Court of Appeal’s judgment made extensive references to the Commission’s 1999 report “Damages for Personal Injury: Non-Pecuniary Loss”.