AC 1.1 Flashcards
What is the House of Commons and what is it used for ?
The HOC is the most important part of parliament as it is made up of the elected representatives of the people known as MP’s.
There are 650 members made up of MP’s who are elected to represent a constituency
What is the government and its role
The governments job is to run the country.
The government is formed by the political party that has the majority of the 650 MP’s.
The Prime Minister is the leader of the majority party.
Most proposals for new laws come from the government. These proposals are called Bills.
What is a bill and the two types of Bill?
A bill is a proposal for law. A bill must be agreed by both Houses of Parliament and receive Royal assent before they can become Acts of Parliament.
Green Paper: Initial report to provoke public discussion of the subject.
White paper: Document setting out their detailed plans for legislation. Often includes a draft version of Bill they intend to put before Parliament.
What are the 7 stages of Paraliament
First Reading - announcement of Bill followed by a vote if it should continue to next stage.
Second Reading: Main principles of bill are considered and debated by the HOC and a vote is taken. As government has support of majority of MP’s they will usually win this vote.
Committee Stage: Bill is examined line by line by a small commitee of MP’s from different parties.
They then report back to the HOC and propose changes.
Report Stage: stage where MP’s consider changes suggested in committee stage and decide which changes they agree / disagree with. Can take several days.
Third Reading: Final chance for HOC to debate the contents of the bill. No changes can be made here they either accept or reject bill.
Lords: Bill goes to HOL where it goes through the same stages as the commons. Called ping pong as any changes HOL makes has to be approved by the HOL.
HOC gets final day as it is made up of representatives.
Royal assent: passed to monarch to confirm. Monarch signing makes the bill into law immediately
What is Judicial president
Judicial President is a source of law making where the past decisions of a judge create new laws for Judges to follow in similar cases. This is based on the court hierarchy where courts bind there court as well the courts below it on the hierarchy of courts.
Treating similar cases in the same way creates certainty, consistency and fairness in the legal system.
This sort of law created by president is known as common law.
What are thw two exceptions to precident?
Didtinguishing) This refers to when the judge finds that the facts in the oresent case are different enough from the earlier one for them to reach a different decision and not follow the precident set in the previous case.
Overruling) This is where a court that is higher up in the hierarchy states that the legal decision in the previous case was wrong and overturns it.
For instance in R vs R 1991 (marital rape)
What is statutory interpretation and what are the three rules used to help judges do this
Statutory Interpretation are rules that judges must follow to make sure they are accurately inpreting the law as well as ensuring consistency in different legal cases
– litteral rule - this is where every word in a statue its taken with its litteral meaning
Golden rule - extention of the litteral rule wehrre words can have their meaning changed or have multiple words considered in order to avoid absurd rulings
Mischief - This is a rule where the judge looks at the purpose of the law and why it was created in the first place, it was established in Heydons Case
