Role of the law commision and the role played by pressure groups Essay Example

Role of the law commision and the role played by pressure groups Essay In this essay I will explain the role of the law commission and discuss the role played by pressure groups and judges with regard to law reform. The law commission is made up of five people from the judiciary, the legal profession and legal academies. Generally the chairman is a high court judge and the other four include a QC experienced in criminal law, a solicitor with experience in land law and equity and two legal academics. They are assisted by legally qualified civil servants. It was set up in 1965 with its main task to be codification. In 1965 it was announced that it would begin codifying family law, contract, landlord and tenant and evidence. This wasnt its only task though, under the law commissions act 1965 the law commission was also meant to remove anomalies from the law, repeal obsolete and unnecessary legislation, consolidate the law and finally simplify and modernize the law. It operates on projects referred to it by the Lord Chancellor or government department, at times it may also work on projects itself feels necessary for consideration. Normally a project will begin with a study of the area of law in question and attempt to identify its defects. Foreign legal systems may be looked at to see how they deal with similar issues. Then it publishes a consultation paper inviting comments, it describes present law and sets out possible options for reform. The commissions final recommendations are in a report containing a draft bill where legislation is proposed. The government then decides if it accepts the recommendations of the law commission. If it does it is down to them to introduce any necessary bills in parliament. We will write a custom essay sample on Role of the law commision and the role played by pressure groups specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Role of the law commision and the role played by pressure groups specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Role of the law commision and the role played by pressure groups specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Personally I think the law commission was weak in some areas and stronger in others. For example they didnt do very well with codification, although they were set a list of laws to codify attempts for the first few were abandoned and the last one never even begun. It is thought that the reason for this is that they realized it wasnt going to work and it didnt fit in with law making in our country. Zander suggests it was down to a mixture of conservatism and realisation on part of the draftsman, legislators and even judges that it simply didnt fit the English style of lawmaking. Although they did better with contract law, they have radically changed it by recommending control of exclusion clauses which led to the unfair contract terms act 1977, they helped in many other situations as well. A pressure group is an organized group that seeks to influence government policy or legislation. Although the term pressure groups implies they use force not all of them do, different groups have different methods. Their aim is to influence people who have the power to make decisions. Some choose to lobby MPs gaining as much publicity as possible for their cause; others may organize petitions or encourage people to write to their own MP and/or minister. Some groups tend to be more effective than others, size or persistence may be the reason for some groups success. Examples include justice a group concerned with promoting law reform in general and charities such as help the aged and shelter. As well as pressure groups and other organizations the public generally make their opinions known to MPs, ministers and to newspapers. This can lead to reform; another thing that has a great impact on reform is the media as it claims to reflect what the public think in general. Although much law reform happens as a response to pressure from one or more sources agencies such as the law commission are set up to deal with area of law referred to them by the government. The majority of law reform is carried out by parliament and is done in four ways. The first one is repeal, then creation, consolidation and finally codification.

5 Tips on How to Develop a Search Strategy

5 Tips on How to Develop a Search Strategy 5 Tips on How to Develop a Search Strategy In academic writing, a â€Å"search strategy† refers to the methods used to find sources. You’ll often have to document your search strategy in the methodology section of a thesis or dissertation. But how do you develop a good search strategy? It depends on what you’re researching, but these five tips are a great starting point. 1. Selecting Databases Your college library should offer access to various academic databases. But not all of these will be relevant to your work (e.g., if you’re studying medicine, you probably won’t need the American Meteorological Society’s Meteorological Geoastrophysical Abstracts database). Unless you take under the weather literally. Consequently, you should either select the most relevant databases via your library’s search engine or access individual databases online. You should also make sure to list the databases used when you write up your search strategy. 2. Search Terms Next, you’ll need to select relevant search terms. Some of these should be obvious based on your research topic (e.g., if you’re writing about mummification in ancient Egypt, you’ll definitely want to search for â€Å"mummification† and â€Å"Egypt†). Well preserved.(Photo: dada/wikimedia) For others, though, you may need to brainstorm related terms. One option is looking at a few papers related to your topic and seeing which keywords they use in their abstracts. 3. Wildcards and Truncation You can increase the number of results you get from a search using â€Å"wildcards† and â€Å"truncation†: Wildcards are symbols used to find alternative spellings of the same term. If a wildcard is represented by a â€Å"!† symbol, for instance, you could search for â€Å"Ram!ses† to find variant spellings of the name (e.g., Ramses, Rameses, Ramesses). Truncations allow you to search for various endings to the same term. So if a truncation is represented by a â€Å"*,† you could search for â€Å"Egypt*† to bring up results that include â€Å"Egyptology† and â€Å"Egyptian.† The symbols for these may depend on the database, so remember to check the â€Å"help† section when using a new database to find out how to use wildcards and truncation. 4. Using Boolean Operators Another way of customizing search results is to use Boolean operators. The three main terms you’ll need here are â€Å"AND,† â€Å"OR,† and â€Å"NOT.† The â€Å"AND† operator allows you to search for papers that contain more than one search term (e.g., â€Å"mummification AND Ancient Egypt†). The â€Å"OR† operator, meanwhile, will return results that feature either of the search terms mentioned (e.g., â€Å"mummification or burial rites†). Or Mummies AND Cats.(Photo: Mario Snchez/wikimedia) â€Å"NOT† lets you exclude certain results from a search. For instance, if you only wanted to find results about ancient Egyptian mummies, you could search for â€Å"mummification NOT bog bodies† to exclude European mummies found in peat bogs.   5. Limiting Searches You can also control searches using limiting conditions. These are the options that allow you to filter certain results for relevance. Common filters include language (e.g., searching only for papers published in English) and date of publication (e.g., searching only for papers published after 2005). The limiters available may depend on the database, but they can be useful if a term returns too many results.