Module description:
Criminal Law Reform Now explores contemporary problems in criminal law and justice, asking how such problems might be resolved or mitigated through legal reform. Legal problems are introduced, outlining the background/context of the problem; the points of present contention; as well as introducing some of the reform focused literature. Following a period of guided independent research, seminar discussion will focus on the reform options, analysing and evaluating the competing ways forward.
Indicative seminar topics include:
- Uncertain approaches to complicity liability
- The role and definition of consent in sexual offences
- The use and abuse of comparative law reform
- Challenging the intoxication rules as an unfair legal fiction
- Legal responses to antisocial behaviour
- The construction of ‘terror’ offence