Reasons fo

Notes

Reasons for Law Reform Laws Laws serve many purposes in society, including preventing conflict and establishing guidelines for acceptable behaviour. To be effective, laws must be: • Known to the community • Easily understood • Able to be changed • Acceptable to individuals and society as a whole • Enforceable Reasons for change There are many reasons that laws may need to change. These include: • Changes in beliefs, values and attitudes • Changes in social, economic and political conditions • Advances in technology • Greater need for protection of the community • Greater awareness of the need to protect rights • Greater need to provide improved access to the law • Encouraging changes in social lives • Need to clarify, simplify or expand laws Changes in beliefs, values and attitudes • Values and attitudes change over time, and laws must keep up with those changes. • Rapid changes may be resisted, and sometimes changing laws to keep up with values an result in another problem requiring law reform. • Examples: smoking laws, Oscar’s Law Changes in social, economic and political conditions • Changes in social conditions: changes as Australia’s population grows and changes (e.g. binge dr...