If the Lords make amendments to a Bill already passed by the Commons, the amended Bill must be returned to the Commons for further consideration. The Commons may accept the amendments - over 90 per cent of Lords' amendments are accepted - or may restore the Bill wholly or partly to its original form, in which case it must go back to the Lords again.
When a Bill has been passed in identical terms in both Houses, it is presented for Royal Assent. This is a formality marking the Bill's official passage into law:
Remember!
Green Winged Dragons Fly Slowly Clockwise Round The Old Ruin
Influences on Parliament
Although legislation is enacted by Parliament, it does not appear by magic: many people and many organisations of different kinds have a hand in the process.
Government departments
Law Commission
Other public bodies
European and international pressures.
Parties and manifestos
Private members' bills
Judges
News media
Pressure groups and lobbyists
Individual contributions
STATUTORY INTERPRETATION
When Parliament has enacted a statute, it has still to be applied by the courts, and questions inevitably arise as to the meaning of particular words or phrases in the Act. This is inevitable: however carefully the draftsman chooses his words, many words in English are capable of more than one meaning, and no human being can foresee all the possible circumstances in which an Act might come to be applied. The courts are therefore responsible for the interpretation or construction of statutes (and other legislative documents), the two words being more or less interchangeable.
In many cases the interpretation of a statute or other legislation is straightforward: the words are clear and unambiguous and leave no doubt as to their meaning. In cases of difficulty, however, there are different views as to what the judge should try to do. Should he apply the text of the statute regardless of its makers' intention, or should he try to determine their intention and apply the statute accordingly. Traditional English thinking for the past two hundred years or so has pointed to the former answer, but in recent years the judges have adopted a more "European" and "civilian" approach and have tended to look for the intention in cases of doubt.
There are traditionally said to be three "rules" used by judges in interpreting statutes: the literal rule, the golden rule and the mischief rule.
The literal rule says the intention of Parliament is best found in the ordinary natural meaning of the words used
The golden rule says that if the literal rule produces an absurdity, the court should look for another meaning of the words that avoids the absurd result.
The mischief rule requires the court to take into account the gap in the law that the statute was intended to fill, and interpret it to "suppress the mischief" Parliament intended to remedy.
The European Court of Justice, with its roots firmly in the "civil law" tradition, adopts a teleological (ultimate purpose) approach to legislative interpretation. It would be difficult to apply a literal or "golden rule" approach in any case, with Community legislation being written in a dozen or so languages
In the past thirty years or so, the English courts have increasingly taken a "purposive" approach to purely domestic legislation too. "The days have long passed," said Lord Griffiths in Pepper v Hart, "when the court adopted a strict constructionist view of interpretation which required them to adopt the literal meaning of the language. The courts now adopt a purposive approach which seeks to give effect to the true purpose of legislation
External or extrinsic aids are those found in other material outside the statute. They include dictionaries and the explanatory notes referred to above, but they also include travaux préparatoires such as White Papers or Law Commission reports, any European Directives or international treaties to which the Act is intended to give effect, and any previous Acts covering the same topic, particularly where the new Act has a consolidating function.
The ordinary meaning of the words used in the statute (and alternative meanings if necessary) may be found from standard and/or specialist dictionaries, and even from foreign-language dictionaries in appropriate cases.
PRECEDENT
How precedent works
In giving judgement on a case, a judge in England normally summarises both the facts of the case and the applicable law, and this serves two purposes. First, it makes it clear to the parties and to everyone else that his decision is based not on a mere whim or the toss of a coin in his chambers, but on impartial rules of law. Second, it is from the judge's reasoning that lawyers extract the legal principles to be applied to subsequent cases.
The basic rule of common law systems is that precedents are binding, subject to their being distinguished or overruled
Three things are essential if any system based on precedent is to work:
- a comprehensive and reliable system of law reporting, because judges cannot follow previous decisions unless they have some way of knowing about them;
- a court hierarchy of some kind, so that judges know which decisions they must follow and which they are allowed to overrule;
- some way of identifying the parts of a judgement that are binding, and of separating them from any other things the judge might say
Court hierarchy
A court is bound to follow the ratio of any decision by a court above it in the hierarchy, whether or not it considers that decision correct.
- Decisions of the House of Lords are binding on all other courts.
- Decisions of the Court of Appeal are binding on all other courts except the House of Lords.
- Decisions of a Divisional Court of the High Court are binding on High Court judges sitting alone, and on all other courts except the House of Lords, the Court of Appeal, and a few special courts of equal standing such as the Court-Martial Appeals Court.
- Decisions of a judge sitting alone in the High Court are binding on all inferior courts, including the Crown Court, the County Court and all Magistrates' Courts.
Decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Community are effectively binding on all courts as interpretations of Community law, and decisions of the European Court of Human Rights must now be applied under the Human Rights Act 1998, but the ECJ and the ECHR have no doctrine of precedent as such.
Given the doctrine of precedent and the rule of stare decisis, how can the common law ever develop? Certainly it can be amended by , but that is a slow process and the common law has its own flexibility. This is based on
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occasional cases raising to be decided for the first time;
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the power of an appellate court to a precedent set by a lower court;
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the power of any judge to adopt a narrow ratio and a case on its facts; and
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the and other powers to depart from same-level decisions
In general, the Court of Appeal is bound to follow its own previous decisions even when it thinks they are wrong. Following the House of Lords' Practice Statement in 1966, Lord Denning MR claimed the same general freedom for the Court of Appeal to depart from a previous decision it believed to be wrong, but his efforts were unsuccessful.
In Young v Bristol Aeroplane [1944] 2 All ER 293 the Court of Appeal said it considered itself to be bound by its own previous decisions, unless one of three conditions applies.
- There are two or more previous decisions which are incompatible with one another.
- The previous decision has been impliedly overruled by the House of Lords. (A decision that has been reversed or expressly overruled is not regarded as a precedent at all.)
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The previous decision was made per incuriam, without considering binding authority that would have led to a different decision.
EUROPEAN COMMUNITY
There are four major institutions of the European Community and a number of minor ones. In the EC's early years, the Commission proposed, the Parliament advised, the Council decided and the Court interpreted Community legislation, but the Parliament and the Court have gradually become more powerful.
