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Unreliable Evidence

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Crime & Justice

Series exploring and analysing the legal issues of the day

Unreliable Evidence: Complexity

13/04/2011

Complexity

BBC Radio 4 - Unreliable Evidence, Complexity

Clive Anderson and guests analyse the legal issues of the day.

Clive Anderson and top legal experts discuss growing concerns that our laws and legal system have grown so complex that even judges are becoming confused.

Clive Anderson and some of the country's top lawyers and judges discuss legal issues of the day. 

The final programme in the current series discusses concerns that our law has become so complex that even judges are struggling to understand it.

The chair of the Law Commission, the appeal court judge Lord Justice Munby, tells Clive Anderson that unnecessary amounts of government legislation over recent years has compounded legal complexity, and made it difficult for the Commission to do its job, clarifying and simplifying the law. 

The last Labour Government, for example, created 4,300 new crimes during its years in power - including a ban on swimming in the wreck of the Titanic and on the sale of game birds shot on a Sunday.
The programme hears how legal complexity creates problems in almost all areas of law, making it increasingly difficult for members of the public to understand and therefore exercise their rights.

Lord Justice Mumby says governments have failed to implement a lot of the Law Commissions suggested improvements to the law, and have also failed to introduce a "basic tool of democracy" - an authenticated electronic database of statutory law.

He admits that the Law Commission's ultimate objective, a complete codification of the law, is unlikely ever to be achieved.


Producer: Brian King
An Above The Title production for BBC Radio 4.

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