Lady Paton

The commission is seeking views on which areas of Scots law are most in need of reform. Reform may be needed because the law is causing difficulties in practice, for example where the law is unfair, unclear, unduly complex or out-of-date.

The commission’s remit covers all of Scots law; it extends to reserved and devolved areas of the law.

Most of the commission’s work is carried out under Programmes of Law Reform, approved by Scottish ministers. Each programme runs for a specified period of several years, and sets out a number of law reform projects which the commission will examine during that period.

Work carried out by the commission has resulted in major new laws passed by the Scottish Parliament and the UK Parliament.

The commission is now preparing its next programme of law reform, the eleventh programme. This is due to start in 2023.

A number of projects under the commission’s current programme, the tenth programme of law reform, will be carried forward into the eleventh programme in 2023. These are:

• Homicide;
• Heritable securities;
• Damages for personal injury;
• Aspects of family law

The Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government, Shona Robison MSP, has also made a reference to the commission to consider changes to the law in order to establish compulsory owners’ associations for tenement properties.

The commission may also continue to carry out law reform work jointly with the Law Commission for England and Wales.

Chair of the commission, Lady Paton, said: “We wish to maximise the benefits that our law reform work can bring to Scotland and to the people and businesses in Scotland. We therefore seek contributions from all those with suggestions for reform of laws which are thought to be unfair, unclear, unduly complex, or out-of-date.”

An online consultation paper will be available from 5 May 2022 on the commission’s website.