A body established by the Law Commissions Act (1965) for England and Wales (with a separate commission for Scotland), appointed from the judiciary and from practising and academic lawyers. Its function is to examine the law with a view to its systematic development, reform, and codification, and to suggest the removal of obsolete and anomalous rules. While influential, it has no power to change the law.
A Law Commission, or Law Reform Commission, is an independent body set up by a government to consider the state of laws in a jurisdiction and make recommendations on those laws. Their functions include drafting revised versions of confusing laws, preparing consolidated versions of laws, making recommendations on updating outdated laws and making recommendations on repealing obsolete or spent laws. It then publishes a report recommending any changes to that area of law, for example codification of the common law (derived from case law) or consolidation or revision of statute law, often including draft legislation.
Similar bodies
Similar bodies keep the law under review in other jurisdictions:
in Scotland, the Scottish Law Commission, established by the Law Commissions Act 1965 at the same time as the Law Commission in England and Wales in Northern Ireland, the Law Reform Advisory Committee was established in April 1989 by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Tom King in Canada, the Law Commission of Canadaestablished by the Law Commission of Canada Act on July 1, 1997, replacing the Law Reform Commission of Canada which had been dissolved in 1993 by the Mulroney government. in Alberta, the Alberta Law Reform Institute in British Columbia, the British Columbia Law Institute, which was formed to replace the British Columbia Law Reform Commission which had been disbanded due to lack of funding in Manitoba, the Manitoba Law Reform Commission in Nova Scotia, the Law Reform Commission of Nova Scotia in Ontario, the Ontario Law Reform Commission in Saskatchewan, the Saskatchewan Law Reform Commission in New Zealand, the Law Commissionestablished by the Law Commission Act 1985 in Australia, the Australian Law Reform Commission in Fiji, the Fiji Law Reform Commission
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