After gloating over for more than a year, the Union government finally constituted the 23rd Law Commission for three years. A notification to this effect was issued by the Law and Justice Ministry on September 2. According to the notification, the tenure of the new body started on September 1, 2024 and will last till August 31, 2027. Ironically, the new body started its functioning on September 1 itself, a day before the notification was actually issued.
Interestingly, the legal luminaries including the chairperson and members, who are slated to man the commission, are yet to be named. The
commission is to be manned by a full-time chairperson, four full-time members, the Secretaries of the Legal Affairs and Legislative departments as ex-officio members and up to five part-time members.
The purpose of this commission is to identify obsolete laws that need to be repealed, carry out audits of laws that affect the poor and give its views on any law that the Law and Justice Ministry refers to it.
The commission has faced rough weather in the past due to the government’s perfunctory attitude in the matter of constituting the Law
Commission and appointing the authorities to effectively run it as the last Law Commission was notified in February 2020, but the chairperson and members were only appointed in November 2022, merely six months before its tenure expired. It’s is a sad commentary and hope this is not repeated.
