AC 1.1 Flashcards
how are laws made?
- by parliament
- often referred to as statues or legislations
what is parliament made up of?
- the monarch
- the House of Lords
- the House of Commons
what are the members of the House of Lords called and how many members are there?
- called peers
- 800 peers
what is the main job of peers?
- to double check on new laws
how are members of the House of Commons chosen?
- elected every 5 years by the public
main job of the members of the House of Commons?
- to debate law
- make & review laws
- represent the public
what is the main job of the government?
- to run the country
how is a government formed?
- by the political party that has the majority of the MPs
where do most proposals for new laws come from?
- the government
what is a proposal for a new law called?
- a bill
what must happen for bills to become laws?
- they must be agreed by both Houses of Parliament and receive the royal assent
what is green paper?
- initial report to provoke public discussion of the subject of the bill
what is white paper?
- a document setting out the governments plan for a legislation
what are the parliamentary stages of a bill?
- first reading
- second reading
- the committee stage
- the report stage
- third reading
- the lords
- royal assent
what is the first reading?
- formal announcement of the bill and is followed bt a vote to move it to the next stage
what is the second reading?
- the main principles are considered and debated by the House of Commons and a vote is then taken.
what is the committee stage?
- the bill is examined in detail by a small committee made up by MPs from different parties, the committee will report back to the House of Commons and often propose amendments
what is the report stage?
- gives MPs the chance to consider the committee report and debate and vote on any amendments they might wish to make for the bill
what is the third reading?
- final chance for the commons to debate the bills content, there are no amendments allowed now and the house will vote either to pass or reject the bill
what is the lords stage?
- the bill goes to the House of Lords and goes through the same stages as the commons
- If the lords amended the bill it must return to the commons where they’ll debate the lords amendments
- the House of Commons has the final say
what is the royal assent stage?
- once the bill has been passed by both house it will go to the monarch for signing, this is the monarchs agreement to make the bill a law
examples of criminal statues
- the criminal justice act (2003)
- the dangerous dogs act (1991)
- the crime sentences act (1997)
what is the judicial process of law making?
- judicial precendent
- statutory interpretation
what is judicial precedent?
- source of law making where past decisions of judges create law for future judges to follow
what does judicial precedent create?
- fairness
- consistency
who is at the top and bottom of the court hierarchy?
- at the top of the court hierarchy is the Supreme Court and at the bottom is the magistrates court
what happens if a decision is taken in a case by a higher court?
- it automatically creates an original or binding precedent for all lower courts
what are the two exceptions to precedent?
- distinguishing
- overruling
what does distinguishing mean?
- the judge finds the facts in the precedent case are different enough from the earlier case to allow the judge to reach a different verdict and not follow precedent
what does overruling mean?
- where a court higher up the hierarchy states that a legal decision in an earlier case is wrong and overturns it eg: law on marital rape
what is statutory interpretation?
- judges can make law by the way they interpret the statues or acts of parliament
what are the three main interpretation rules for judges?
- the literal rule
- the golden rule
- the mischief rule
what is the literal rule?
- judges should use the ordinary definition of the words in a statue
- however, a problem with this method is that a word can have multiple dictionary meanings
what is the golden rule?
- allows the court to modify the literal meaning to avoid absurd results caused by the literal rule
what is the mischief rule?
- allows the court to enforce what the statue was intended to achieve rather than what the words actually say
