Kenneth J. Keith on Choosing How to Codify, Develop, and Reform the Law

Kenneth J. Keith, Victoria University of Wellington, Faculty of Law, has published Making Law – Who, How and What?, a speech given at the International Conference "Fifty Years of the Law Commissions: The Dynamics of Law Reform Now, Then and Next," (London, July 2015). Here is the abstract.

This paper was adapted from a speech given at the international conference “Fifty Years of the Law Commissions: The Dynamics of Law Reform Now, Then and Next”. The speech aimed to offer a wider view of the matters discussed at the conference. In the paper, the author comments on some of the choices which are made and which will continue to be made in codifying, developing and reforming the law and the broader constitutional system. Those choices involve three questions – who – the participants, how – the processes they follow, and what – the principles they apply and the product of the work, including its form. The author reflects on the bases on which those choices are to be made by drawing on examples from discrete areas of law: reform of electoral systems, equality and the prohibition of discrimination, the law of piracy and maritime crime, and the laws of interpretation.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.