What is the Law Commission: its role, members, & recommendations

The Law Commission and importance

The Law Commission is a non-statutory commission (not created by a law of Parliament) formed by the Union Ministry of Law and Justice through a gazette notification to help the government review functioning of laws, suggest repealing of obsolete legislation, and make recommendations on matters referred to it by the government.

The commission is usually chaired by a retired judge of the Supreme Court or a High Court, and has legal scholars as members. Serving judges can also be appointed to the commission, according to the notification on the appointment of the new panel.

The 22 Law Commissions appointed since Independence have submitted a total 289 reports to the government. The government is under no obligation to accept the reports; however, the commissions’ recommendations have over the decades led to the enactment of important legislation including the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (CrPC), and the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (RTE Act).

The process of scrapping more than 1,500 obsolete central laws was taken up by the government after recommendations for their “immediate repeal” in reports submitted by the 20th Law Commission.

Constitution of the 23rd panel

The September 2 notification issued by the Law Ministry’s Legal Affairs Department says the panel will have a full-time chairperson, four full-time members including a member-secretary, not more than five part-time members, and the secretaries of the Legal Affairs and Legislative departments as ex officio members. The commission’s term will be until August 31, 2027.

The chairperson and four full-time members can be serving SC or HC judges or “other category of persons”, who can in theory be any expert chosen by the government. The notifications of the 2020 (22nd) and 2015 (21st) commissions also said this, but the two commissions were headed by Justice Awasthi and former Supreme Court judge Justice B S Chauhan respectively.

The chairperson and members of the 23rd Law Commission are yet to be named. The decision will be taken by the Appointments Committee of Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister, government sources said. The chairperson and members of the 22nd Law Commission were named only in November 2022, which was effectively when the commission’s work started.

A serving judge, if appointed to the commission, serves until retirement or expiry of the panel’s term, whichever is earlier, and gets no additional remuneration apart from the usual judge’s salary. In the “other” category, a chairperson is entitled to Rs.2.50 lakh as monthly salary and a member, Rs.2.25 lakh. The member-secretary must be an officer of the Indian Legal Service of the rank of Secretary.

Terms of reference of panel

The terms of reference of the 23rd Law Commission are broadly the same as those of the past few commissions. The first three terms are: “Identify laws which are no longer needed or relevant and can be immediately repealed; Creating a Standard Operating Procedure (SoP) for periodic review of existing laws inter alia for the undertaking of simplification of language and processes; Identify laws which are not in harmony with the economic needs of the times and require amendments.”

Like the 22nd and 21st commissions, the 23rd Law Commission too, has been asked to examine “the existing laws in the light of Directive Principles of State Policy and to suggest ways of improvement and reform and also to suggest such legislations as might be necessary to implement the Directive Principles and to attain the objectives set out in the Preamble of the Constitution”.

The Prime Minister’s call last month for a “secular civil code” reflects the Directive Principle that the “state shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India”. The 22nd Law Commission also looked into this question; but, its views are not known — the chairperson assumed office as a member of the Lokpal in March, before the Law Commission could submit its report to the government.

The 23rd Law Commission is also mandated to examine laws that affect the poor, carry out a post-enactment audit for socio-economic legislation, and review judicial administration to make it more responsive to the needs of current times.

What 22nd panel said

The 22nd Law Commission presented 11 reports, including one in April 2023 that recommended that Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code, the widely criticised law against sedition, should be retained. The commission cited threats to internal security, including from Maoists, militancy in the Northeast, terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir and the Khalistan movement to back its recommendation. However, the commission did recommend certain amendments to “bring about greater clarity regarding the usage of the provision”.

This March, the commission presented a report recommending a new law to protect trade secrets. It also worked on a report on simultaneous elections, but this report, like that on the Uniform Civil Code, was not presented to the government.