5.3 The importance of values
Whichever form of analysis you use, when deciding on your conclusions and recommendations, it is likely that the choice you make will be influenced by your underlying values. Often, law students are told that justice is merely the product of the application of neutral rules (Aiken, cited in Curran, 2007, p. 127). However, the policymaker or lawmaker will have prioritised one or more values in choosing how to develop the law; and in making recommendations for law reform, you will also be prioritising a set of values. It is, therefore, important to reflect on and articulate the values lying behind your recommendations.
You will now consider a possible reform of the Employment Tribunal’s rules on fees, to identify the values that may lie behind different recommendations.
Activity 8 Identifying the values behind a recommendation
Imagine you work as a policy researcher in a think-tank focusing on employment law. A fee payable by all applicants was introduced for employment tribunal claims in 2013. This was subsequently found to be unlawful by the Supreme Court,Footnote 1 and the fee was removed. In 2020, there were reports that the government intended to re-introduce fees for employment tribunal claims (Farragher, 2020), and your manager thinks the issue is likely to be raised again in Parliament soon. In preparation for this, you have been asked to make a recommendation about whether there should be a fee for employment tribunal claims.
- a.For each of the possible recommendations (green cards), identify the value (yellow cards) influencing them by clicking on the cards to match them.
Comment
This activity shows that the proposal for law reform will differ depending on which value the researcher decides to prioritise. It is therefore important to think about your own values, which may influence the recommendations you make in your policy project.
- b.You will now think about your own core values and how they might influence your policy research. What are your core values that may be relevant to your project and influence your final recommendations? Make a note of them below.
Comment
The values you identify will depend on the values that are important to you. When you start to analyse your findings and make your recommendations, look again at your answer to this question and reflect on whether your stated values remain important to your final recommendations or whether you are taking into account other values.
When analysing your data, you need to be aware of the values influencing your recommendations and articulate them in your report. The final section will look at how you write the final report.
Footnotes
- 1 R (Unison) v Lord Chancellor [2017] UKSC 51.Back to main text