There are many influences operating on parliament before and during the legislative process. Explain and evaluate any three of these influences, giving examples of how parliament has been persuaded to introduce legislation.

The law commission’s recommendations for law reform will affect a large number of people’s legal rights, duties and liabilities, but only if they are implemented by parliament. Parliament is under no obligation to follow the law Commission’s recommendations so this shows that only parliament can change the law. However two-thirds of the law commission’s reports from the period 1966-99 have been implemented fully or partly. In the beginning most of the reports resulted in legislation but then the rate slowed down reaching a low point in 1990. Since then there have been many reports awaiting implementation mainly because of the lack of parliamentary time.

Royal commissions are temporary committees set up to investigate and report on one specific area of law. When they have reported their job is finished and the royal commission is at an end. The chairman is often a senior judge and the commission is usually referred to by the name of the chairman, such as the Royal Commission on Civil Liability; the Pearson commission 1978. The royal commissions are made up of people with expertise or an interest in the subject under consideration. They work part time continuing with their other jobs so a royal commission may take months or years to investigate and report. Royal commissions may have their research done on their behalf by universities, e.g. the Runciman commission. Royal commissions are very rare due to their expense and time taken to report; the average duration from establishment to report is between two and four years. They have sometimes been established to deal with controversial issues that a government may not want to tackle itself. For example, many politicians have campaigned for a royal commission to examine the issue of the decriminalisation of cannabis.      

Royal commissions have enormous power and are extremely influential but as in the case with the law commission, parliament is under no obligation to do anything once the Royal commission has been reported. Some Royal commissions have led to major changes in the law, e.g. Phillips commission’s report in 1981. However, sometimes a royal commission’s report has been ignored by parliament, e.g. the Pearson commission in 1978. This was overtaken by the Woolf Report, ‘Modernising Justice’.

Pressure groups are interest groups that campaign for new law. A group of people who share a view about how they want the law to be changed can work together to convince parliament to reform the law. A pressure group may be temporary and deal with one issue or it could be a permanent body with a wider agenda in a particular area. Pressure groups collect information and formulate arguments and seek public support by raising public awareness. They do this by holding public demonstrations, advertising in newspapers, pamphlets and magazines. Pressure groups want politicians to realise that there is a lot of support for the pressure group which would convince them to reform the law. Some examples of pressure groups are MIND, SHELTER, LIFE, Help the aged, BMA and the NSPCC.

Some pressure groups have been successful in achieving their aims. For example the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 was introduced as a result of pressure group activity. Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have raised awareness to such an extent that everybody knows about these pressure groups and no government can afford to ignore the environmental consequences of its policies. The poll tax was abolished because there were too many campaigns against it.      

AS Law

Marks received: 21/25 - A