One of the key questions of legal studies is ‘how effective is the law?’ It’s one that students studying the subject will have to grapple with over and over again, and for all different areas of law (workplace, international, criminal, family, etc.). The thing is, the law is never perfect. It’s trying to be, but it’s maybe impossible to ever truly get there. The key things for students to acknowledge here are: does it uphold the rule of law? does it make justice accessible for society and individuals? is it efficient? does it prevent crime? is it known amongst the public? All these things are fairly big questions. Key factors you can look for to ascertain effectiveness are media response and statistics. If there is backlash from the public and from the media then that probably reveals that the law, whatever it is, isn’t sufficiently reflecting the values of society at that time. Which is the role of law, to reflect the values of society. Statistics are also a very good indicator of effectiveness. If the law has led to an increase in a certain type of crime, or an increase in the displeasure that individuals have in dealing with the law, then maybe the law isn’t coming to just and fair decisions. There will always be issues with law, the world is far too complex and unique for legislation to be perfectly suited to deal with every situation and circumstance. But, that is why it’s important to study them. So that you can see where and why laws are failing and how they should be changed. I try to impress on students the importance and the ‘interesting-ness’ of this task. Hopefully it can get them involved and actually eager to look at laws and at data in order to come to their conclusions rather than the ones their teacher has told them to come to.

Hugo Nihill