public nuisance and outraging public decency - Law Commission

PART 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Law Commission has embarked on a new programme of ‘simplification’ of
the criminal law, including criminal evidence and procedure. 1 Simplification
involves:
(1) giving the law a clearer structure;
(2) using more modern terminology;
(3) making the law in a given area more consistent with other closely allied
areas of law;
(4) making the law readily comprehensible to ordinary people by ensuring
that it embodies sound and sensible concepts of fairness.
1.2 It is envisaged that the simplification project will take the form of a rolling
programme reviewing several areas of the criminal law in turn. The present
review of public nuisance and outraging public decency is the first instalment of
that project. 2
THE GENERAL AIM OF THE SIMPLIFICATION PROJECT
1.3 Simplification is not the same as codification, although the former can be done
with a view to making the latter easier. As explained in the Tenth Programme:
The Commission continues to support the objective of codifying the
law, and will continue to codify where it can, but considers that it
needs to redefine its approach to make codification more achievable.
This project is an important component of that redefinition. We
believe that simplification of the criminal law is a necessary step in
furtherance of its codification.
1.4 Simplification will commonly be aimed at making only relatively modest legal
changes. It may involve recommending the abolition of an offence, as discussed
in the relevant paragraphs of the Tenth Programme, if it has become redundant.
Alternatively it may recommend that a common law offence be restated in
statutory form, thus achieving partial codification. Otherwise, it will be concerned
with removing clear injustices or anomalies.
1.5 This project will be concerned, in the first instance, with placing a range of
common law crimes in statutory form or, if those crimes have become redundant,
with recommending their abolition.
1.6 The project will not be concerned with the common law crimes of murder,
manslaughter and conspiracy to defraud. Changes to such offences cannot be
recommended solely in the name of ‘simplification’, because the numerous
1 Tenth Programme of Law Reform (Law Com No 311), para 2.24 and following.
2 Tenth Programme, para 2.32.
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