Following conflict, considerable effort is often dedicated to legislative reform. This effort includes not only domestic actors but also international actors frequently acting with the aim of establishing the rule of law. This article seeks, first, to provide some context for legislative reform in post-conflict settings and outline some of the criticisms that have been made. Drawing on the work of legislative experts, the article then identifies some of the simple questions that those involved in legislative reform ask and discusses some of the key challenges in answering them. The article suggests that establishing the rule of law is more than putting laws ‘on the books’ and that the way in which legislation is created may itself contribute to developing the rule of law. It suggests that as the rule-of-law community develops new approaches, it might find it useful to draw on the approach of legislative experts and their concern with how effective legislation is created.

This article examines the practice and limits of judicial law reform. In particular, I consider the question of when initiation of a reform is appropriate for the judiciary as opposed to the legislature, an issue which has been a matter of controversy amongst the Justices of the United Kingdom Supreme Court. This question is assessed in the light of the institutional and constitutional competences of the courts, particularly with respect to the structure of common law reasoning. It is also argued that it is important to have regard to perspectives of the relevant judges, in understanding the individual and collective approaches to the judicial development of the law.

The Australian law reform arrangements comprise a ‘crowded field’ of law reformers. These include permanent, semi-permanent and ad hoc commissions, committees and inquiries charged with examining and recommending reform of Commonwealth/federal and state laws. These are supplemented by citizen-led deliberative forums on law reform. The author’s experience in her roles as a commissioner and deputy president of the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) and also as counsel assigned to advise the Joint Standing Committee on Migration in the Australian Federal Parliament highlighted facets of Australian law reform – the particular role of a law commission working in a federal system and the co-option of legal expertise to scrutinize law reforms proposed within the parliamentary committee system.

The ‘Commission Supérieure de Codification (‘High Commission on Codification’) is a body that was created with the aim of providing support for the process of codifying the texts of positive law. Analysis of both its place in France’s institutional architecture and its working methods highlights certain particularities in the body’s functioning and raises questions as to its degree of proximity to the Law Commissions.

This article sets out the centrality of government to the initiation of law reform in respect of the (England and Wales) Law Commission and the Scottish Law Commission (and by extension, those law reform agencies based on the British model), and then considers in the light of recent experience how the existing approach works in the unique context of a single jurisdiction – England and Wales – which now has two governments – the UK Government for England, and the devolved Welsh Government. Having identified shortcomings, the article makes suggestions for improved institutional arrangements to meet the particular law reform needs of Wales.

The Supreme Court has ruled that it is at the discretion of the competent national court to assess whether periods of stand-by time are working time. In doing so, the court should apply Romanian law as interpreted in the light of ECJ case law.

The Norwegian Supreme Court concludes that time spent on a journey ordered by the employer, to and from a place other than the employee’s fixed or habitual place of work, should be considered working time within the meaning of the statutory provisions implementing the Working Time Directive (2003/88/EC). This ruling takes into account the Advisory Opinion of the EFTA Court.

A system, as exists in Italy, that only-partially counts service under fixed-term contracts for the purpose of classifying staff in grades, is compatible with the Framework Agreement on fixed-term work, as there was an objective justification.

The Oporto Court of Appeal held that the employee’s availability 24 hours per day, 6 days per week, breaches the employee’s right to rest. However, such breach does not qualify the availability periods as overtime. The Court also found that the continuous use of a GPS system breached the employee’s right to privacy.

In its follow-up judgment to the ECJ’s preliminary ruling in the Hälvä case (C-175/16), the Finnish Supreme Court has held that ‘relief parents’ relieving foster parents in a child protection association on the latter’s holidays fall within the scope of the Finnish Working Hours Act even though the work was performed in the homes provided by the association for the children to live in. Therefore, the relief parents were entitled to the rights guaranteed by the Act (subject to the fact that some of their claims had expired).

An employee is entitled to protection against insolvency if s/he is entitled to severance pay on the basis that the employer has changed the workplace, so forcing the employee to choose between relocating and ending the employment relationship - but before paying the severance in full, the employer becomes insolvent.

The Court of Appeal has confirmed that discrimination arising from disability had occurred when an employer dismissed an employee for misconduct which was connected to the employee’s disability, even though the employer had no knowledge of the connection.

Two differently constituted Employment Appeal Tribunals (‘EATs’) have recently considered whether it is sex discrimination to pay men on parental leave less than women on maternity leave. In Capita, the EAT decided that it was not direct sex discrimination to fail to pay full salary to a father taking shared parental leave, in circumstances where a mother taking maternity leave during the same period would have received full pay. However in Hextall, the EAT has indicated that enhancing maternity pay but not pay for shared parental leave may give rise to an indirect sex discrimination claim by fathers.

The Labour Court of Brussels treats the long-term effects of cancer as a disability in accordance with the case law of the ECJ. This has triggered an obligation on employers to consider making reasonable adjustments before looking at dismissal.