The Law Reform Committee was a committee in
England and Wales
England and Wales () is one of the three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. The substantive law of the jurisdiction is Eng ...
appointed by the
Lord Chancellor
The lord chancellor, formally the lord high chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest-ranking traditional minister among the Great Officers of State in Scotland and England in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the prime minister. The ...
"to consider, having regard especially to judicial decisions, what changes are desirable in such legal doctrines as the Lord Chancellor may from time to time refer to Committee".
The
Lord Chancellor's decision to create this committee was announced on 2 May 1952 by the Attorney General,
Lionel Heald
Sir Lionel Frederick Heald, QC, PC (7 August 1897 – 8 November 1981) was a British barrister and Conservative Party politician.
Early life
Heald was born in Parrs Wood, Didsbury, Lancashire. He was educated at Charterhouse, then served ...
, at the dinner of the West Surrey Law Society. The Solicitors Journal said that the proposed step was "overdue". The Committee was appointed on 16 June 1952.
[Law Reform Committee. Third Report (Occupiers' Liability to Invitees, Licensees and Trespassers). Cmd 9305. HMSO. London. November 1954. Page 5.] In 2006, John Wheeler said that the Committee was "defunct".
[John Wheeler. Essentials of the English Legal System. Pearson Education. 31 December 2006]
Page 349
from Google Books
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...
.
Composition
Six members of the Committee were judges, two were
Queen's Counsel
In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel (Post-nominal letters, post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of ...
, two were
solicitor
A solicitor is a legal practitioner who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions. A person must have legally-defined qualifications, which vary from one jurisdiction to another, to be described as a solicitor and ...
s and the remaining three were professors of law.
Reports
See also
*
Law commission
A law commission, law reform commission, or law revision commission is an independent body set up by a government to conduct law reform; that is, to consider the state of laws in a jurisdiction and make recommendations or proposals for legal chang ...
*
Law Commissions Act 1965
The Law Commissions Act 1965 (1965 c. 22) was an Act which created the Law Commission of England and Wales and the Scottish Law Commission, tasked with reviewing English and Scots law respectively.
Background
During the Victorian era, successiv ...
References
Soources
* Blair, Michael C. "The Law Reform Committee: The First Thirty Years" (1982) 1
Civil Justice Quarterly 64
* Andrew S Burrows. Clerk & Lindsell on Torts. Sixteenth Edition. Sweet & Maxwell. London. 1989.
* Sir Robert Megarry and Sir William Wade and Charles Harpum and Stuart Bridge and
Martin Dixon. The Law of Real Property. Seventh Edition. Sweet & Maxwell. London. 2008.
Citations
{{Reflist
Law reform in the United Kingdom
Law commissions
1952 establishments in the United Kingdom