Scottish Law Commission asks for input on future agenda

A public consultation on its future law reform work has been launched by the Scottish Law Commission.

Views are being invited on topics for inclusion in the Commission's 10th programme of law reform, due to start in 2018.

Projects to be carried forward from the current ninth programme are the continuing review of contract law, heritable securities, and proprietary aspects of leases, along with the request by the Justice Secretary and the Scottish Parliament's Justice Committee to examine the working of s 53 of the Title Condiitons (Scotland) Act 2003. The Commission is seeking views on which areas of Scots law are most in need of reform, through being unfair, unclear, unduly complex or out of date.

In choosing topics for the 10th programme, the Commision will apply the following criteria:

• importance – the extent to which the law is unjust or out of date, and the potential benefits from reform;
• suitability – whether the issues are mainly legal rather than political;
• resources – the availability of expertise and experience of commissioners and legal staff; and the need for a mix of projects in terms of scale and timing to achieve a balance of workload among commissioners, and effective management of the programme.

It will also bear in mind whether a topic may be suitable for the special parliamentary law reform processes, in particular the procedure for Commission bills in the Scottish Parliament.

Chairman of the Commission, Lord Pentland, commented: “We aim to recommend reforms that will achieve real practical benefits for Scottish people and Scottish businesses. We look forward to receiving suggestions about areas of Scots law that are thought to be unfair, unduly complex or outdated and in need of law reform.”

Click here for the Commission's online consultation page, which includes details of how to respond. Views are invited by 31 July 2017.