In 1989 we produced a draft Criminal Code. It was in many respects a statement of the existing law or of fairly recent proposals for reform, which were open to criticism. Accordingly, we subsequently adopted a policy of reviewing areas of criminal law so that one by one they would be modernised, where appropriate, before … Read more >
Project status: Complete
There are between 7,500 and 8,000 level crossings on the railway network in Great Britain. Every year, people are killed or seriously injured in accidents on level crossings, and level crossings can cause considerable inconvenience to drivers, pedestrians (particularly disabled users), cyclists, horse riders and others. In this project we examined the legal framework governing … Read more >
Project status: Complete
The report, Land Registration for the 21st Century: A Conveyancing Revolution, and accompanying draft Bill were the outcome of six years’ joint work by the Law Commission and HM Land Registry. The purpose of the Bill was to create the necessary legal framework in which registered conveyancing could be conducted electronically and make other changes … Read more >
Project status: Complete
A project to review the law relating to limited partnerships and remove doubts that have caused concern to users of limited partnerships and their advisers. A limited partnership is an ordinary partnership with certain modifications made by the Limited Partnerships Act 1907. The main difference between an ordinary and a limited partnership is that in a limited … Read more >
Project status: Complete
In this project we reviewed the law on limitation periods. We recommended that the problems with the existing law should be resolved by the introduction of a single, core limitation regime, which would apply, as far as possible, to all claims for a remedy for a wrong, claims for the enforcement of a right and … Read more >
Project status: Complete
Download the report Download the summary The problem Kidnapping is an offence created by judges in the seventeenth century. There are generally 600 to 750 cases per year in which a person charged with kidnapping is brought before the courts. Many involve parents and children. The current definition is that kidnapping is an attack on … Read more >
Project status: Complete
Many crimes, particularly crimes of violence, are committed when the offender is in a state of extreme or partial intoxication, usually as a result of the voluntary consumption of alcohol but often because of his or her use of (other) drugs, or a combination of alcohol and drugs. This view is supported by a number … Read more >
This is a joint project with the Scottish law Commission. We began work in January 2006 when the teams at the two Commissions issued a scoping paper, inviting views on which areas of insurance contract law were in need of reform. In the light of the responses received, the teams published a second paper setting … Read more >
Project status: Complete
Where a claimant in a civil action has been involved in illegal activities, how far should this prevent them from enforcing their normal legal rights? This project looks at the way that the law of trusts, contract, unjust enrichment and tort responds when a claimant has been involved in some form of illegal conduct connected to … Read more >
Project status: Complete
Nearly a third of the population of Wales – just under 400,000 households – rent their homes. The law governing their relationship with their landlords is an irrationally complicated mess. This project seeks to replace it with a modernised, understandable, and just legal structure. The project The Welsh Government announced in 2012 that it would … Read more >