Statutory instruments are commonly used to change regulations made under Acts such as Road traffic Acts and the Health and Safety at Work Act, which govern field where ever changing technological, economic and other factors require the law to evolve constantly.
The second forms of Delegated legislation are By-laws. In this case Parliament may give local authorities, or other bodies, the right to make law in respect of a certain area or a certain activity. The purpose of this is to allow the formation of laws that suit the local circumstances. For example a local council can pass laws to make detailed provisions with regards to a local car park or by-laws to keep a Public Park in order. A very prevalent from of By-laws are some made for railways, these usually imply that the land the track is on is private property.
The third and final forms of delegated legislation are Orders in Council. This is where parliament may choose to delegate the power to make changes of constitutional or other great importance to the Privy Council. This is a body of senior minister, past and present, who meet with the monarch, and is useful as a means of bringing in powers in the times of a national emergency. One common use of Order in council to bring an Act, or part of an Act into effect immediately. Few statutes or sections of statues become law on the day they receive royal assent. Most statutes provide for at least some sections to come into effect on a date appointed bye the minister in charge.
Such examples of Orders in Councils can be seen recently. Agricultural cases such as Mad Cow disease and foot and mouth disease were national emergencies which forced parliament into action. It used Orders in Council to promptly apply new laws that prohibited the selling of beef on the bone and in the case of foot and mouth the removal of farmers and animals freedom, in order to control the epidemic.
b. Taking into account the advantages and disadvantages of delegated legislation comment on whether or not delegated legislation should be considered as a necessary source of law. (15)
There are many reasons for and against delegated legislation. Firstly the advantages, there are many reasons for parliament delegating its legislative power to a range of inferior bodies and individuals. One of the major problems with law making by parliament is purely practical consideration of limited time. When the cabinet decides which proposals will go forward to be drafted as bills and put before parliament, they are not able to proceed with everything they regard as desirable. And hence parliament has to prioritise the laws which are more controversial and need a higher degree of debate and scrutiny. And so MP’s are relieved of the need to spend unjustified amounts of time on routine and uncontroversial issues, and can concentrate on more pressing issues of greater social significance. This problem with time became more pressing during the mid twentieth century when the role of government in everyday life increased. For example, the provision of a health service, education and social services funded by taxation. This great change in society meant parliament had to set the rules, for both the services and their finances.
Another advantage is that once the broad principles and outlines have been decided by parliament, the details and often technical rules can be made by people who are experts in the field concerned. This ensures that the laws are tailored to meet the exact needs of the field or profession involved and the wording of the statute can relate to the field. For example up dating various Health and safety Regulations in the Workplace would not be adequately dealt with by MP’s who have no insight into Health and Safety. On the other hand professional who know about Health and Safety would be more suited to creating such a statute, as their version will include all necessary aspects.
Also, the rules can be made, and changed fairly quickly because they do not have to go through the parliamentary process of readings and committees in both Houses of parliament. This speed is useful both because it allows rules to be changed as circumstances change and also because it is possible to deal with emergencies as they happen. In this respect this form of delegated legislation is very flexible in the way its content can be handled.
As well as advantages there are also obvious disadvantages. The major criticism of the use of delegated legislation is that it is not democratic. It could be seen as law making by people who are not elected and therefore not directly accountable, in the way MP’s are accountable to the electorate or the general public. This is not true of course, if the delegated powers are given to a local authority, because local authorities are voted for by the local public. Because the MP’s are voted for by the electorate they are considered to make decisions in the benefit of the majority with may not be prevalent in the decisions of civil servants. In situations where there is little accountability, there is said to be little control over the legislative process. Although, there are measures that can be enforced by Parliament and the courts. Firstly parliament controls the efforts of civil servants and other bodies by carefully creating the parents acts in order to avoid abuse of the law. Parliament also has the authority to scrutinize any mistakes in the law that they may come across.
Because of the speed and non publicized manner of delegated laws, it is often hard for the public as well as parliament to keep up with the progress of the statutes creation. This means it cannot gain much scrutiny from the public eye and the media, and hence may not fully reflect the interests of the majority. It may not also be scrutinized by parliament before the bill has already been passed, in which case and faults spotted later will mean the law will have to change which is of general inconvenience.
The Act of Parliament that gives the power to make delegated legislation, known as the Parent act, often gives power to a government minister, but sometimes the rules are actually made by civil servants. This creates a further level of delegation and also conflicts with a basic principle of government, the separation of powers. The separation of powers is an ideology that no one single group can be in charge of society. The separation of powers is between the legislator (parliament), the executive (the cabinet) and the judiciary (judges). Applying this principle to the United Kingdom, we have parliament as our law maker, the cabinet and civil servants as our law enforcers and the judges to resolve disputes.
On the whole these are the main advantages and disadvantages, and this brings me to my conclusion. I do agree with the statement that,
“Delegated Legislation is a necessary source of Law”. This is because I feel that the advantages out weigh the disadvantages, and one main factor stands out. This is the factor that parliament has limited time. In order to prioritise, parliament must deal with controversial and challenging issues, and I feel the more routine bills can and need to be delegated for the above reasons.
