Law_Reform

Law reform can be defined as the process of examining existing laws and implementing changes in a Legal System. The usual aim of law reform is to enhance justice or change the efficiency of a law. Law reform is a vital part in any legal system and for any nation and is an important leader in ensuring that laws are applied practically and in the right situation, and that those laws achieve justice. Organisations set up to aid in law reform are called Law Reform Bodies, Agents or Commissions. These organisations carry out research and recommend ways to simplify and modernise the law. Several different Law reform agencies in Australia include the Courts, Parliament, Coroner, Royal Commissions, Lobby Groups and the Ombudsman. One agency, the NSWLRC (New South Wales Law Reform Commission), was set up in 1967 by the Law Reform Commission Act 1967 (NSW). Its responsibility is to consider NSW laws with the aim to eliminate defects in laws, eliminate laws which are out of date or aren’t modern enough to proved sufficient justice, to simplify the law, and to adopt new and effective means of administrating law. The NSWLRC does not have the power to initiate inquiries and can only investigate laws after a request from the Attorney-General, but can recommend areas of investigation to the Attorney-General to consider. Once the commission has permission to inquire it will widely publicise the issue, consult organisations and the public, identify defects in the law, then report to the Attorney-General with recommendations. For any of these inquiries to become a change in a law, the Parliament must be informed, who then implement any law changes. Courts can also implement law reform. The main role of the courts is to interpret laws and apply the law which has been provided by parliament however, judges can, through deciding new precedents, operate as a law reform agency. Judges are free to criticise the law and to suggest reform of the law. If the parliament does not like the way that a statute has been interpreted by the courts it then it will usually amend the statue anyway. This is because by the judge wanting law reform they have identified that the process of judicial reason and decisions had give in an unintentional meaning to the original intent of the statute. Therefore if that law reform does not occur the law would be insufficient in achieving justice. Although individuals cannot change the law, there are groups that they can join that can influence its reform. Lobby groups are people with similar interests and aims on how they wish governments will act about laws. Most target members of parliament, committees, the public and the media in an attempt to achieve their aims. A weakness of Law Reform commissions, the courts and lobby groups is that they all rely on parliament for the change in a law to occur. These agencies are effective to the point of influencing law reform but it is ultimately only parliament that can make suggested changes. There are many reasons for law reform, most of which are influence by the changing social values and concepts of justice. As society changes the law must continue to reflect society’s morals and values. Unfortunately the process of law reform takes a long time and therefore the law in many cases lags behind the changing social environment of today. Also concepts of justice influence law reform. In criminal law there is much confusion over whether the justice is for the accused, the victim or the community affected by the crime. Justice for the victim receives high attention and this is shown by the increasing amount of victims who receive compensation. Also the failure of existing laws influences law reform. These laws fail when social values and morality change, political agendas change, the standard and quality of life change and the availability of technology changes. These poor laws may be cancelled out by new statutes, amendments to legislation, or interpretation in the courts. A current criminal justice issue with exists in the media at this current time is Racial Motivated Crimes or Hate Crimes. Media coverage suggests a need for change in the laws that cover and consider this issue. One of the most recent episodes of race-hate crime in Australia occurred in May 2009 when protests by Indian students erupted in Sydney and Melbourne. Indian media reported what it deciphered as racially motivated attacks against Indian students. Rallies were organised in Melbourne and Sydney and an intense coverage of the supposed hate crimes began in India, which were rather critical of Australia and the Australian police forces. Calm was called for as the Australian government investigated the attacks. The investigation found that one of the victims had lit himself on fire by accident and an Indian couple were charged with the murder of an Indian student for financial reasons. These attacks were widely reported around the world as racial attack but after the investigation it became clear that the attacks had nothing to do with race. “Indians living in Australia are not the targets of racial hate crimes, despite violent attack and under-reporting of assaults, authorities say. Politicians, police and Indian community leaders agree there’s no evidence Monday’s attack on an Indian man in Sydney’s west was racially motivated.” - June 9, 2009. Sydney Morning Herald. Although the investigation closed with the attacks classified as not being racially motivated, the Victorian government made a plan to create tougher sentences for hate crimes. Tougher sentences would apply to crimes deemed to be based on the victim’s race, religion, gender or sexual orientation. Judges would have to take into account hatred for or prejudice against a particular group of people as an aggravating factor when sentencing offenders. It was also suggested that Indian students in Australia have their own ombudsman to whom they can go to in times of trouble. The main change that needs to occur to the laws regarding racial hate crimes is the severity of the sentences handed out to the offenders of these crimes. The main issue is the motivation behind the attack rather than the intent. When sentencing a race-hate offender with a tougher sentence it is important to know whether the attack was done out of hatred or if it was done with the intent to harass or intimidate. These two things seem very similar but in some cases (where the crime done out of hatred has more effect than of a crime done out of harassment and intimidation does) the offender may have only had aims of harassment or intimidation without the motivation of hatred for that person regarding their race, religion or sexual orientation. Therefore, if it is possible to prove that the crime was motivated by hatred, the sentence handed out to the offender would be more severe compared that that of the sentence handed out to an offender of a crime with the intent to harass or intimidate the minority. There is a lot of criticism of Race Hate Crime Legislation. Opponents of hate crimes legislation argue that such legislation provides special status to certain protected groups. It is said that a crime is a crime, no matter the motivation, and that crimes should not carry a heavy penalty just because of the criminal's hate. It is also said that distinguishing a hate crime requires reading the mind of the accused and that the definition of hate crimes needlessly opens the legal system to further abuses. In short, critics argue that hate crime legislation criminalizes thought and denies equal protection. Alternatively, proponents of hate crimes legislations have said that hatred causing violence is a social problem and special measures by legislators and law enforcement are required to secure the safety of the groups targeted by hate crimes. Supporters reason that one who can be moved to violence by hatred of a class of people presents greater danger to society than one who merely hates an individual. Some proponents suggest that hate crimes laws protect all groups, not just minorities and women. They also point out that it is not unusual to make thoughts or states of mind elements of a crime. For example, the distinction between first-degree murder, second-degree murder, and manslaughter depends on the degree to which the killing was deliberate or premeditated. The definition of fraud requires that the perpetrator knowingly defraud the victim. Other proponents of hate crime legislation consider that that politically correct or socially sanctioned hate is a problem, and that legislation will need to explicitly cover those often deemed less worthy of protection, such as men. With racial attacks becoming more frequent Australia does not only have to worry about a potential slowdown in enrolments from overseas with international education being its third largest export industry, but its reputation as a safe country of refuge with multicultural society. Therefore reform of the laws regarding racial hate crimes is necessary.