Law reform

Law reform is an important mechanism for achieving justice, and young people should be encouraged to be full participants in society. Law reform can involve bringing the law in line with social contexts, removing defects in the law, or adopting new or more effective methods for administering the law and dispensing justice.  This module complements the Year 11 Legal Studies syllabus, which requires study of the conditions that give rise to law reform, agencies of reform and mechanisms of reform, as well as an example of law reform. This module uses the issues surrounding youth justice and the need for reform as an example of a contemporary legal issue in need of reform. Other areas of law that may be of interest include the changes to sexting or image based abuse laws, the examination by the Law Reform Commission of NSW on the rules of sexual consent following the Lazarus case, recent protests for climate change action by school students, or the NSW law reform sentencing laws following the 2014 Thomas Kelly manslaughter case. 

This module is designed to explain the process of law reform and examine two contemporary issues – one of purely legislative reform (minimum age of criminal responsibility) and one with a more complex theoretical underpinning (STMPs) in order to push students to think critically about law reform and its purpose. 

All of our resources are free to download and use. If you have any questions about the materials, or would like to request changes/corrections, you can contact us here.

Last updated: March 2019

Law reform is an important mechanism for achieving justice, and young people should be encouraged to be full participants in society. Law reform can involve bringing the law in line with social contexts, removing defects in the law, or adopting new or more effective methods for administering the law and dispensing justice. This module complements the Year 11 Legal Studies syllabus, which requires study of the conditions that give rise to law reform, agencies of reform and mechanisms of reform, as well as an example of law reform. This module uses the issues surrounding marriage equality and the need for reform as an example of a contemporary legal issue in need of reform. Other areas of law that may be of interest include the changes to sexting or image based abuse laws, the examination by the Law Reform Commission of NSW on the rules of sexual consent following the Lazarus case, young offenders in NSW, recent protests for climate change action by school students, or the NSW law reform sentencing laws following the 2014 Thomas Kelly manslaughter case.

All of our resources are free to download and use. If you have any questions about the materials, or would like to request changes/corrections, you can contact us here.

Last updated: April 2019