‘The Parliamentary legislative process fails to achieve its primary purpose: it fails to ensure effective legislative scrutiny of Parliamentary Bills.’ Discuss.
Introduction
• This essay will discuss the process of scrutinising Parliamentary Bills in the United Kingdom and the extent to which this process has been effective throughout the years.
• Some argue that Parliament has been effective in achieving its purpose; scrutinising Parliamentary Bills.
• On the other hand, others argue that Parliament has failed to achieve that.
Main Body
• Although Parliament does not usually make law, it has the important role of scrutinising Bills. This involves close inspection and proposed amendments made by both the House of Commons and the House of
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The Rule of Law refers to the principle that law should govern a nation instead of being governed by the decisions of individual governments. The complexity of Parliamentary Bills make the legislative process more time consuming, harder to comprehend and as a result it makes it harder to reach to a final decision. In this respect Parliamentary scrutiny can be said to undermine the rule of …show more content…
According to a committee’s annual report , emergency legislation does not allow the proper scrutiny of Parliamentary Bills. This occurs because of the limited time available to scrutinise such Bills which does not allow Parliamentary committees to examine the Bills in detail and propose a variety of amendments.
- Late amendments have also become a growing problem in the United Kingdom. This is particularly evident in matters concerned with Human Rights. Late submission of amendments does not allow enough time for the committees to discuss the matters and accept or reject such amendments which as a result leads to inefficiency to perform their job.
- Some Bills are, therefore, just passed so as to show that both the Parliament and the Monarch are involved in the legislative process.
- Finally, the inability of the Parliament to scrutinise Bills leads to incomplete or flawed legislation. The Criminal Justice Act 2003 was evidenced to be incomplete and inconsistent. The Child Support Act 1991 was also seen as badly flawed. In Smith v Smith and another , is an example of a case where it was found by the courts that the Act was uncertain and unclear.
• Arguments in favour of the Parliament’s efficiency in scrutinising
Most individuals with a general background knowledge of the United States Federal Government system are aware that in order for a bill to become a law, it must first pass a majority vote in Congress. There is, however, a very important step in the legislative process that sometimes goes unnoticed. The committee system of the legislation process ensures that the appropriate attention is given to each bill introduced to Congress. Each member of both chambers are assigned to committees and subcommittees, and are expected to become subject matter experts in their respective roles as committee members.
The procedure for approving a bill and making it a law involves many steps. The following description is a short summary from “How Our Laws are Made”, an in depth description of the legislative process that can found on the website of the Library of Congress. After a bill is drafted, a member...
In terms of scrutinizing the executive and actions of government, the House of Commons has a number of opportunities at its disposal, mainly in the form of debates and questions. The Commons is notorious for its constant debate; the Commons can express its views on foreign policy and international crisis, for example the 1956 debates of the Suez crisis and the emergency debate on the Falklands following the Argentinean invasion in 1982. Question time is also a very important example of an opportunity for the executive’s actions and plans to be publicly questioned as the meeting is now frequently featured on TV news and politics analysis programmes. This allows Her Majesty’s Royal Opposition to challenge the exec...
Contrasts in the lawmaking methodology utilized as a part of the House and Senate reflect the distinctive size of the two chambers and individual terms of its parts. In the House, the dominant part gathering is inflexibly in control, stacking advisory groups with lion 's share party parts, and utilizing principles to seek after enactment supported by its parts. In the Senate, singular parts are better ready to hold up the procedure, which prompts lower similarity costs, however higher exchange costs. The complication of the lawmaking procedure gives rivals different chances to murder a bill, making a solid predisposition for the present state of affairs.
David Doherty, “Legislatures”. In William Cross, eds., Auditing Canadian Democracy, 10th ed. (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010)
Parliamentary sovereignty, a core principle of the UK's constitution, essentially states that the Parliament is the ultimate legal authority, which possesses the power to create, modify or end any law. The judiciary cannot question its legislative competence, and a Parliament is not bound by former legislative provisions of earlier Parliaments. The ‘rule of law’ on the other hand, is a constitutional doctrine which primarily governs the operation of the legal system and the manner in which the powers of the state are exercised. However, since the Parliament is capable of making any law whatsoever, the concept of the rule of law poses a contradiction to the principle of parliamentary supremacy, entailing that Parliament is not bound by the Rule of Law, and it can exercise power arbitrarily.
Paun Akash, Robert Hazell, Andrew Turnball, Alan Beith, Paul Evans, and Michael Crick. "Hung Parliaments and the Challenges for Westminster and Whitehall: How to Make Minority and Multiparty Governance Work (with Commentaries by Turnbull, Beith, Evans and Crick)." in Political Quarterly Vol 81, Issue 2: 213-227.
Parliament was used to "manage the Crown's business (Loades 90)." The parliament was also used to pass bills and legislature, but each time a bill was presented, it was mandatory that it would go through each house at least three times. As the age of the Parliament became older, it's procedures grew "more sophisticated, and more strictly enforced." (Loades 92) The Parliament also became a place at which "provided a very good platform for a monarch who wanted to say something of particular
The Legislative Branch, or Congress, " creates, abolishes, and changes [the] federal laws which govern the nation." (World Book 138). This branch is divided into two houses: the Senate and the House of Representatives and is run by the Vice President. The two houses collaborate to decide what laws will be passed and how to word them. This branch can "check" the power of the other two branches. T...
The legislative branch is comprised of two bodies; the Senate and the House of Representatives. Their primary responsibility includes making and modifying laws to be adopted and enforced by other branches of government. The legislative branch also oversees the military operations and funding, to help protect the United States of America. The legislative branch helps finance the Armed Forces and helps protect those men and women who serve by enacting policies and laws for their specific branch of military. This particular duty- helping the Armed Forces-, gives me the freedom each and every day to go to school, work in an establishment of my choice and gives me the ultimate freedom, that my country prides for future generations to come. I find my protection granted to me by the people who selflessly serve to be the most rewarding gift I have ever received, and sadly I often take it for granted. An interesting fact I gathered from researching this topic is that the Legislative Branch is the only branch of the government who can declare war.
On one hand, political constitutionalists argue that parliamentary sovereignty is the underlying principle in the British constitution as power and law making are bo...
One of the most influential and celebrated scholars of British consistutional law , Professor A.V Dicey, once declared parliamentary soverignity as “the dominant feature of our political insitutions” . This inital account of parliamentray soverginity involved two fundamental components, fistly :that the Queen-in-Parliament the “right to make or unmake any law whatever” and that secondly “no person or body is recognised by the law of England as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament.” . However this Diceyian notion though an established principle of our constitution now lies uneasy amongst a myriad of contemporary challenges such as our membership of the European Union, the Human Rights Act and a spread of law making authority known as ‘Devolution’. In this essay I shall set out to assess the impact of each of these challenges upon the immutability of the traditional concept of parliamentary sovereignty in the British constitution.
In a nutshell, parliamentary sovereignty exists because judges have for centuries consistently stated that they do not have the constitutional power to question Acts of Parliament. They have come to the conclusion that the judicial function is merely to interpret legislation in order to ascertain the intention of Parliament in passing it. The case Cheney v Conn gives an outline of this point. Due to the courts accepting judgments of the Queen in Parliament and allowing any law to be passed for centuries, parliamentary sovereignty is a known as a common law doctrine. Sovereignty is a fundamental rule of the common law. The sovereignty is not laid down in any statute. For as long as the judges accept the sovereignty of Parliament, sovereignty will remain the ultimate rule of constitution. As Salmond explains, all rules of law have historical sources. As a matter of fact and history they have their origin somewhere, though we may not know what it is. But not all of them have legal sources. Bu whence comes the rule that Acts of Parliament have the force of law? This legally ultimate, its source is historically only not legal. It is the law because it the law and not for any other reason that it is possible for the law to take notice of. No statute can confer this power upon Parliament for this would be to assume and act on the very power that is to be
The ideology of parliamentary sovereignty represents a constitutional order that acknowledges the necessary power of government, while placing legal limits and conditions upon its excise due to the Rule of Law, developed by the judiciary in cases such as Pickin v British Railways Board [1974] AC 765. The Diceyan theory represents a definition of parliamentary sovereignty. A general summary recalls that,
The concept of parliamentary political system was rooted in 1707 of Great Britain; the word derives from ‘parley’, a discussion. It was used to describe meetings between Henry III and noblemen in the Great Council (Szilagyi, 2009). It was originated in British political system and is often known as the Westminster model as it was used in the Palace of Westminster. It became influential throughout many European nations later in the 18th century (Smith, 2010). Countries with parliamentary systems are either constitutional monarchies such as the United Kingdom, Denmark, Australia, and Canada or parliamentary republics such as Greece, India, Ireland and Italy (McTeer, 1995). The parliamentary type of government is known for its three distinctive features; first, executive is divided into the head of state and the head of government, they are independently elected forming a dual executive; second, the fusion of ...