Post-Legislative Scrutiny
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On 20 March 2008 the Government announced that it has accepted the proposals in our report (further details below). Report. Press release.
Introduction
As the body charged with keeping all the law under review we are concerned both at the volume of legislation that is passed by Parliament and whether it accurately gives effect to the underlying policy aims. We are also concerned if new law has unintended consequences which make the law less certain and more complex. There are many issues that arise when one considers post-legislative scrutiny. The key questions include the purpose of post-legislative scrutiny, which legislation should be subject to such scrutiny, what form the scrutiny should take and by whom should it be undertaken, and perhaps most importantly, who should be responsible for making decisions about all of these issues.
Proposals
On 25 October 2006 we published our proposals to Parliament for introducing a more formal system for reviewing laws after they have been brought into effect and encouraging better regulation. The final report, a press release and the Chairman's speech at the launch of the report are available.
Background
On 29 January 2006, we published a consultation paper inviting responses to various questions that we have identified. (A Press release is available.) The consultation period closed on 28 April 2006. We are now analysing responses and will draft a final report which we hope will be published during Autumn 2006.As part of our consultation, we held a seminar on post-legislative scrutiny jointly with the Statute Law Society on 1 March 2006. A note of the seminar is available.
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NOTE - We are happy to provide information about our projects. However, we cannot give legal advice or deal with individual cases. Nor do we help with student assignments.