What Law Reform Is, and Who Does It

In one line

Law reform is the deliberate improvement of the law as an activity in its own right, distinct from legislating on a new subject, and in India six different bodies do it in six different ways.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: law reform means the systematic examination of existing law with a view to its improvement, by repeal, amendment, consolidation, codification or restatement, undertaken as a continuing activity rather than in response to a particular occasion; in India it is carried on by the Law Commission of India and State Law Commissions, by Parliament and the State legislatures through their own committees, by the Government departments that draft and administer the law, by the courts, by statutory regulators making subordinate legislation, and by the professional bodies, academics and civil society organisations that propose and press for change.

What distinguishes reform from ordinary legislating

Ordinary legislating responds to an occasion. A problem arises, a Bill is drafted, and a new subject is regulated.

Law reform looks at law that already exists and asks whether it still works: whether it is obsolete, inconsistent, unnecessarily complex, unjust in its operation, or scattered across instruments that should be brought together.

Its characteristic instruments are repeal of what is dead, amendment of what is defective, consolidation of what is scattered, codification of what is judge made, and restatement of what is unclear.

And its characteristic virtue is that it is continuous. A country that reforms law only when something goes wrong accumulates obsolete law until nobody can find the current position, which is the condition every law reform body exists to prevent.

The six agencies

The Law Commission of India

What it is. A non-statutory body constituted by the Government from time to time, chaired by a retired judge, which examines subjects referred to it by the Government or taken up on its own motion and reports with recommendations, usually with a draft Bill. Chapter 720 treats it in full.

What it can do. Study a subject at length, take evidence, and produce a reasoned recommendation with a draft.

What it cannot do. Enact anything. A report is a proposal, and chapter 730 is about what happens to it.

Its relevance to this syllabus is direct: the Fourteenth Report of 1958 and the 184th Report of 2002 are both about legal education, chapters 70 and 80, and the 266th Report of 2017 is on the Advocates Act.

Parliament and the legislatures

What they can do. Everything, since only they can enact.

How reform reaches them. Through a Bill, and through their own committees: departmentally related standing committees, select and joint committees on particular Bills, and committees on subordinate legislation.