Sir Terence Etherton - Law Commission

ePolitix.com speaks to Sir Terence Etherton, chairman of the Law Commission, about developments in the 10th programme of law reform.

Question: You have launched a web discussion forum to consult on your 10th programme of law reform. What do you hope to achieve from this forum?

Sir Terence Etherton:

It has always been our policy to consult widely on all our projects and reports.  We always have at least one public consultation on every project. The consultation paper is placed on our website for every body to see.

As part of our policy of consultation, we not only consult widely on particular projects, but also on what should be part of our programme of reform. What we are hoping to do, by using the web forum, is to expand the reach of people with whom we consult and effectively use it as a way of engaging all of our stakeholders.

When I say stakeholders, I mean everybody who may be affected by any of our projects or proposals for reform and anybody else who is otherwise interested.

We believe that people should have the opportunity to tell us which laws are not working, and the web forum is a very direct and highly desirable way of allowing them to express their views and comment on the views of others.

This web forum  is part of an online consultation pilot being run by the Hansard Society and the eDemocracy unit of the DCA. Every contribution will be carefully considered when we are putting together our next Programme.

Question: What responses have you had so far?

Sir Terence Etherton: The response so far has been very good. We have had a total of 2,848 visits to the site, of which 2,364 are unique visitors spending time on the site. The home page has been visited 2,355 times, the forum page, where we ask about law reform, 1,237 times, and a total of 77 people have formally registered on the site.  It is very exciting to see eDemocracy in action.

We have recently restructured the forum to make it even more user-friendly. Visitors will now find separate discussion pages for different areas of the law. We based these discussion areas on responses to date. We are hoping for even more visits before the consultation closes on 30 March.

Question: Very impressive figures. Are any consistent messages coming through?

Sir Terence Etherton: To be perfectly frank no, except that there are many areas of the law people want to have looked at.

What is really very encouraging and interesting is the variety and range of matters that people want us to examine. They cover every major field you would expect the public to be interested in. For instance, they cover a range of criminal law matters, property law, family law, local authorities, planning law, freedom of information, environmental law and so on.

Question: Do you invite a response from government as part of the consultation process?

Sir Terence Etherton: Yes. We have actually sent out over 500 individual letters or individual communications to people in addition to the general invitation to the public through the web forum and newspapers and so on. Amongst this communication is a letter to each  government department inviting them to suggest projects for our consideration. In addition, each Law Commission Programme of Reform must be sanctioned by the Ministerial Committee for the Law Commission.

The Ministerial Committee for the Law Commission was set up by Lord Irvine when he was Lord Chancellor in 2000. It is chaired by the Minister responsible for the Law Commission, presently Vera Baird QC, and comprises Ministers from the various departments with which we deal.

Question: How will the responses be used in helping you decide which projects to take forward?

Sir Terence Etherton:

The responses will first be analysed by the law teams here at the Commission. They will then be presented to Commissioners, who will collectively decide which projects we take forward.