AC1.1- Describe processes used for law making

what are the parliamentary stages of a bill?

For a Bill to become law, it must go through a series of stages in Parliament:

1) first reading

2) second reading

3) the committee stage

4) the report stage

5) third reading

6) the lords

7) royal assent

What is the first reading?

the goverment first introduces the Bill into the Commons (or occassionally the Lords), where it receives a first reading. This is just a formal announcement of the Bill and it is followed by a vote to allow it to move to its next stage

What is the second reading?

at the second reading of the Bill, its main principles are considered and debated by the whole House of Commons and a vote is taken. As goverment has the support of a majority of MPs, they will usually win this vote. If so, the Bill then moves on to the committee stage

What is the committee stage?

The Bill is now examined in detail, line by line, by a small committee made up of MPs from different parties. The committee will report back to the whole House and will often propose amendments (changes) to the Bill.

what is the report stage?

The report stage is normally followed immediately by a third reading of the Bill. This is the final chance for the Commons to debate the Bill’s contents. No amendments are allowed at this stage - the House votes either to pass the Bill or reject it

what is the Lords?

After the third reading, the Bill goes to the House of Lords, where it goes through the same stages as in the Commons. If the Lords have amended the Bill, it must return to the Commons so MPs can decide whether to accept or reject the Lord’s amendments. The House of Commons has the final because it is made up of the people’s elected representatives

what is the royal assent?

Once the Bill has been passed by both Houses of Parliament, it goes to the monarch for signing, known as the Royal Assent. This is the monarch’s agreement to make the Bill into an Act of Parliament or law and is a formality. The new law will come into force immediately, unless the Act specifies that it will only apply from some later date (known as a commencement order).

Parliament

The UK is a parliamentary demcracy. This means that most of the country’s laws are made by passing Acts of Parliament. Laws made by parliament are also often referred to as ‘statutes’ or ‘legislation’.

Parliament is made up of three parts:

• the monarch (the queen or king)

• the House of Lords

• the House of Commons

The monarch has only a formal role in law-making. The king or queen simply gives the Royal Assent - their agreement to the new law

The Lords

Members of the House of Lords are called pers. There are about 800 peers. In the past, all peers were noblemen (such as dukes and barons) and they were herediatry positions that passed from father to eldest son. However, today there are only 92 hereditary peers; there are also 26 Church of England bishops and archbishops. The ret of the memebers are life peers who cannot pass their position on to their chldren. The main job of the Lords is to act as ‘double check’ on new laws

The commons

The House of Commons is the most important part of Parliament because it is made up of the elected represenatives of the people: the 650 Members of Parliament (MPs). Each MP is elected at the general election to represent a constituency (a geographical area of the country).

The goverment

While Parliament’s jobs is to represent the people, the goverment’s job is to run the country. The goverment is formed by the political party that has a majority of the 650 MPs. The prime minister is the leader of the majority party. Most proposals for new laws come from the goverment. A proposal for a new law is called a Bill.

Bills must be agreed by both Houses of Parliament and receive the Royal Assent before they can become Acts of Parliament (laws).

Green Paper - Before putting a Bill before Parliament, the goverment usually publishes a Green Paper. This is an initial report to provoke public discussion of the subject. It often included questions for interested individuals and organisations to respond to.

White Paper - After the consultation, the goverment publishes a White Paper, which is a document setting out their detailed plans for legislation. It often includes a draft version of the Bill they intend to put before Parliament

what are some examples of the criminal statutes?

• the criminal justice act (2003)

• the crime (sentences) act (1997)

• the dangerous dogs act (1991)

The criminal justice act 2003?

introduced a change in the double jeopardy rule, following Ann Ming’s successful campaign and the recommendations of the Macpherson Report on the murder of Stephen Lawrence. The change enabled the killer of Ann Ming’s daughter and one of the suspects in the killing of Stephen Lawrence to be tried for a second time. Both were convicted

The crime sentences act 1997?

introduced mandatory minimum sentences for a range of repeat offences, such as an automatic life sentence for a second serious sexual or violent offence

The dangerous dogs act 1991?

most legislation involves deatiled scrutiny and usually takes months to become law, but this Act was rushed through Parliament in just a few weeks as knee-jerk over-reaction to a media-led moral panic. As a result, it wasn’t given due consideration and many flaws became apparent, such as that it ‘blames the breed', not the deed’: most dog attacks are not in fact committed by the four breds banned by the Act

what are statute?

a written law and so judges need to interpret the meaning of its words and apply them to the case they are judging

What is an example of a goverment bill that was blocked by the House of Commons?

The Terrorism Bill 2005, introduced under Prime Minister Tony Blair, proposed extending the detention of suspected terrorists without charge from 14 to 90 days to allow police additional time to collect evidence. However, the House of Commons rejected the proposal by 322 votes to 291. A compromise of 28 days was subsequently approved and introduced through the Terrorism Act 2006. This demonstrates parliamentary scrutiny, as MPs can challenge goverment legislation and amend proposals to ensure a balance between public protection and individual human rights.

What is Judicial precedent?

• a source of law-making where the past decisions of judges create law for future judges to follow

• it is based on the principle of standing by or following what judges have decided in previous cases

• this means that where the point of law in case today is the same as in the previous case, the judge should follow the decision made in the previous one. Treating smiliar cases in the same way creates certainity, consistency and fairness in the legal system

• Much of the law of the land has developed from following the decisions made in earlier cases. This helped to create a single set of laws common to the whole country, and so the system has come to be known as common law

what is the court hierarchy?

The legal system has a hierarchy of courts, with the Supreme Court at the top and the magistrates’ courts at the bottom. A descision taken in a case by a higher court automatically creates an originial or binding precendent for all lower costs - one that they have to follow when dealing with similar cases

what are the exceptions to precedent?

there are two situtions where a court does not have to follow precendent: distinguishing and overruling

Distinguishing?

A precendent from an earlier case is only binding on a present case if the legal principle involved is the same and if the facts are similar in both cases. ‘Distinguishing’ means that the judge finds the facts in the present case are different enough from the earlier one to allow him or her to reach a different decision and not have to follow the precedent of the earlier case

Overruling?

is where a court higher up the hierarchy states that a legal decision in an earlier case is wrong and overturns it. For example, the Supreme Court can overrule a lower court’s decision when it hears an appeal.

What is an example of an overruling a precedent?

The law on martial rape. In the case of R V R (1992), a husband had been convicted of attempting of attempting to rape his wife. He appealed on the grounds that there was a centuries-old precendent that a husband could not be guilty of raping his wife because the marriage contract gave a wife’s ‘irrevocable (i.e. irreversible) consent’ to sex. But the appeal court overruled this on the grounds that the idea of irrevocable consent was unaceptable today because a couple are now seen as equal partners in a marriage.

Statutory interpretation?

• When there is an existing law already created by parliament, the judge’s job is to a apply and interpret the law to the case that they are hearing. This is called statutory interpretation. It is down to the presiding judge how they interpret the law made by parliament to the case they are hearing (although there are some guidelines).

• In reality, judges should not be making their own laws as this goes against their power as judicial decision makers. However, where there is no law made by Parliament, sometimes judges do have to create law as they go along. This is known as judicial precendent.

• Binding precedent refers to the notion that the judicial precedent is followed by courts in the hierarchy for similar cases. For example, the Crown Court would follow the Supreme Court and then the Magistrates would follow the Crown Court.

Statutory interpretation - what are the three main interpretation rules used by judges?

• the literal rule

• the golden rule

• the mischief rule

what is the literal rule?

Under this rule, judges should use the everyday, ordinary eaning of the words in a statute. However, one problem with this method is that a word can have several different literal, dictionary meanings. For example, in R V Maginnis (1987), a case involving illegal drugs, different judges found different meanings of the word ‘supply’.

What is the golden rule?

Sometimes, the literal rule can lead to an absurd result and the golden rule allows the court to modify the literal meaning to avoid this.

For example, under the Official Secrets Act (1920), it was an offence to obstruct Her Majesty’s Forces ‘in the vicinity of’ (i.e. near to) a prohibited place, such as a naval base. In the case of Adler v George (1964), Adler argued that he had not broken the law because he was not literally in the vicinity of a prohibitied place, but was actually in it. The court chose to apply the golden rule to avoid an absurd result and Adler was convicted

What is the mischief rule?

The mischief rule allows the court to enforce what the statute was intended to achieve, rather what the words actually say.

For example, the Licensing Act (1872) makes it an offence to be drunk in charge of a ‘carriage’ on the highway. In Corkery v Carpenter (1951), Corkery was found guilty even though he had been in charge of a bicycle, not a carriage. The court used the mischief rule to convict him, arguing that the Act’s purpose was to prevent people from using any form of transport on the public highway when drunk - not just carriages