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Introduction Acts of Parliament (or statutes) are the form of primary legislation that is the law enacted by the Queen in Parliament (Keenan, Riches and Allen 2011, p. 15). In addition, legislation is one of the main sources of English law today. This essay is mainly about basic knowledge of primary legislation and my understanding of its superiority and limitations. This essay will introduce how an Act of Parliament is created, followed by disclosing the reasons. Next, it will explore the advantages and disadvantages of primary legislation compared to secondary legislation and common law.
The legislative process of making statutes The parliamentary procedure is summarized by UK Parliament (n. D. ) as follows. ‘An Act is a Bill approved by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords and formally agreed by the reigning monarch (known as Royal Assent). ‘ As is outlined by Adams (2012, p. 34), the prescribed procedure is long and complicated. First, there is a pre-legislative stage before the Bill’s Journey in Parliament starts. A Green Paper is usually issued as the discussion paper including schemes for new legislation and relevant interest group may be conferred with.
Following this, A Green Paper is set out, which is concerned with details of proposed legislation along with explanations of what it intends to achieve. At that time, the government Bill enters upon a new phase. When it comes to the Parliamentary procedure, most Bills are initially dealt with by the Home of Commons and then pass to the Home of Lords through the same processes. While a Money Bill must originate in the Commons (Keenan, Riches and Allen 2011, p. 20). The first stage is the introduction and first reading, which is to publish the Bill and put forward the date of the second reading.
During the second reading, the minister (or MM) describes the intention of the Bill. After that, a full debate on its general principles follows carries out and the relevant shadow minister is responsible to respond to the disputes. Before the Bill is voted, any interested group may make contributions. Given that a majority is in its favor, the Bill progresses to the committee stage (Adams 2012, p. 34). At the committee stage, the Bill is discussed in detail by a fixed committee (consists of 25-45 of MSP chosen based on the proportion of party representation).
If there are some amendments are reposed, they will be voted on. In some cases, the whole House may sit as a committee instead and passes to the third reading stage directly (Keenan, Riches and Allen 2011, p. 20). However, a Bill usually moves on to the report stage after the committee stage. At the report stage, the Bill is reported by the committee to the House and further amendments are considered probably. When passing on to for the third reading, main arguments of the Bill are debated generally and only the minor verbal changes are made by the Commons.
This is the last stage processed in the House of Common. The bill is then transferred to the House of Lords and nearly the same procedures are carried out (Adams 2012, p. 34). After receiving a Royal Assent, a Bill becomes an Act of Parliament finally. ‘The Royal Assent is something of a formality as the Queen’s approval is never refused these days. ‘ (Keenan, Riches and Allen 2011, p. 20) It deserves mentioning that the Lords lost its right to veto legislation Business Law Essay 1 By Enmeshing-Www required.
However, to avoid the threats that the King appoints peers to assure the passage of Bills, Parliament Act 1911 deprived the right of the Lords to reject the Bill. And the power of the Lords was undetermined further by Parliament Act 1949, which reduces its delaying power to one year (Keenan, Riches and Allen 2011, p. 20). Reasons for Creating Statutes Turning to the motivations of creating an Act of Parliament, situations are different in the modern society than ancient one in the history of I-J. For one thing, the King held the absolute power before the parliamentary reform succeeded in the I-J.
The first Act of Parliament was Statute of Morton that was passed in 1235. At such an early age, Acts of Parliament came into being for the needs of the King himself Gifford and Salter 1996, p. 2-3). There is no lack of ridiculous cases and a poisoning case that occurred in 1531 was a typical one among them. Briefly, in that year the Bishop of Rochester’s cook added poison to the porridge prepared for the bishop’s family and the poor. Consequently, most of the people who ate the porridge became unwell and one person died.
Henry Ill certainly was warned of the risk of poisoning, because he was extremely fond of his food. An Act was rushed through Parliament soon, which provided that a poisoned must be boiled to death. As a result, the shop’s cook was the first one. For another, circumstances made different in the modern I-J because of the doctrine of Parliamentary Sovereignty. This theory endowed the supremacy with Parliament in the legislative area. I-J Parliament (n. D. ) declared that, ‘An Act of Parliament creates a new law or changes an existing law. This implied that Acts are made when some matters on which there is no law happened or needs of altering the law came out. Adams (2012, p. 25) analyzed the motives of legal changes into three categories: social change, political change and economic and technological change. Social change: In the past 40 years, changes of social beliefs and moral values facilitate legal change powerfully. For instance, as the values of women were gradually recognized by the society, woman’s rights became advanced. To respond to the increasingly important role of women in the society, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 was passed.
Political change: Once the government realized some public needs or some matters that posed threats to the state, Parliament would decide to take actions (Gifford and Salter 1996, p. 2-3). For example, he Act about imposing special road taxes was enacted because the roads were extensively damaged by the heavy trucks. Economic and technological change: Each scientific achievement generated its own demands for legal change. Adams (2012, p. 25) made an example that the vast body of law arose from the commercial exploitation of the internal combustion and engine.
In addition, the law is needed to retain on a regular basis. This is another type of legal changes mentioned by Keenan, Riches and Allen (2011, p. 12). In this theory, the law was resembled as a ‘sophistical machine’, any piece of machines needed essential mending when necessary to secure a good working order. Hence, there are three kinds of Acts can achieve that goal, namely codifying, consolidating and amending Act (McIntyre 2012, p. 9). Primary legislation enacts the law of land and it is essential for the state to operate without chaos (Gifford and Salter 1996, p. 1).
It is apparently suggested primary legislation owns its superiority within legislative system. However, it certainly has some defects which are needed to be made up for by the delegated legislation and common law (UK Parliament n. D. ). Secondary (delegated) legislation permits the Government to change a law without enacting a totally new Act of Parliament. And common law in the context of next section means Judge-made law. The advantages and disadvantages of primary legislation will be further discussed by comparing it with the secondary legislation and common law. First, making primary legislation is extremely time-consuming.
For this feature, it may bring about full consideration on the interests of most individuals or parties and thus the law would be fair, rigorous and considerate relatively. By contrast, a lengthy process leads to a delay of dealing with emergencies, for example, the spread of underground of terrorism. In the case, the secondary legislation reveals its advantage of responding rapidly to the changing situations and emergencies (McIntyre 2012, p. 9). A convincing fact was cited by McIntyre (2012, p. 10) to reflect the ineffectiveness of the Parliament. In 2008 over three thousands of statutory instruments were passed, but only 33 Public Acts.
This also implies that frequent changes of rules from secondary legislation may make gal personnel or business confused. Secondly, the statues are made by 650 MSP and 300 or so peers. MSP represent their own constituencies (Keenan, Riches and Allen 2011, p. 15), so MSP cannot make laws as individuals, but a body. Moreover, any amendment and disagreement must be approved by each House. Thus, it is unlikely that the law becomes arbitrary, discriminatory and oppressive. Nevertheless, the political parties inevitably prioritize interests for themselves rather than the public as a whole.
Third, one of the disadvantages of primary legislation is that the law-makers re not capable to enact regulations on, because government activities became varied and the problems needed to be dealt with were more complicated and technical (Keenan, Riches and Allen 2011, p. 21). However, delegated legislation ‘makes use of particular expertise held by those who enact it’ McIntyre (2012, p. 10). This exactly offsets the defects that average MSP are not especially acquainted with the expertise in varieties of matters. They are, for example, proper levels of pork to be found in the sausage (Adams 2012, p. 6) or safe storage of hazardous material Gifford and Salter 1996, p. 10). Forth, statute law is still an incomplete system, so the majority of English law originate in the decisions made by Judges. The Judge-law is on the basis of the doctrine of Judicial precedent. It offers ratio deciding for Judges when matters which are not dealt with by existing Acts. Consequently, it makes the judicial procedure more effective (Keenan, Riches and Allen 2011, p. 23). On the other hand, the primary legislation is more systematic and stable then common law may, so haphazard changes are less likely to happen.