ATTORNEY General Paul Gallagher will launch two Law Reform Commission (LRC) documents this evening aimed at making the law more accessible.
The first is the LRC report on statute law restatement. This process involves integrating amendments into the original Acts, so that the most up-to-date version of the law can be read in a single document. This has the potential to save huge amounts of time as, at the moment, especially with much-amended Acts, lawyers have to trawl through several different documents to find out what the law actually states.
In July last year the LRC published its consultation paper on the subject, following responsibility for restatement being transferred to it from the Office of the Attorney General.
This was followed by a consultation process and the receipt of submissions.
The report being published today contains legislation to be included in the commission's first Programme of Restatement, covering law for restatement in 2008/2009.
This programme will cover the Freedom of Information Act 2007, which has close to 100 amendments; the Data Protection Acts, which have over 70; the Prevention of Corruption Acts; and the Criminal Procedure Act 1967.
Areas of legislation with multiple Acts to be covered include ethics in public office legislation; firearms legislation; statute of limitations legislation (which is made up of 13 Acts); employment leave legislation; proceeds of crime legislation and equality legislation.
Updates of four existing restatements, carried out already by the Office of the Attorney General, will also be included.
The LRC will also launch a consultation paper on a legislation directory this evening. This is a publicly available database of all primary legislation and some secondary legislation, which will document modifications made to primary legislation by later legislation. The current database is at www.irishstatutebook.ie.
Responsibility for this has also been transferred from the Office of the Attorney General to the LRC, and the consultation paper considers how the directory can best serve its user base.
Proposals for its improvement include more timely updates, the inclusion of comprehensive commencement information for Acts, and the association of secondary legislation with their parent Acts.