AC 1.1 Describe processes used for law making

Question 1

What is the first reading?

Answer 1

When the name of the bill and its main aims are read out, and a formal vote is taken

Question 2

What is the second reading?

Answer 2

Where the main debate takes place, which is then followed by another vote.

Question 3

what is the Committee stage?

Answer 3

A chosen group of representatives look closely at the bill and address any issues by suggesting appropriate amendments

Question 4

What is the report stage?

Answer 4

The committee report back to the full house to then vote on the proposed amendments

Question 5

What is the third reading?

Answer 5

The final vote on the bill before it is sent to recieve the royal assent.

Question 6

What is the Royal Assent?

Answer 6

When the monarch signs off on the bill. They cannot refuse it as they are now only a symbolic head of state

Question 7

What is a judicial precedent?

Answer 7

Judges in the supreme court or Court of appeal create precedents through the decisions that they make. These decisions set the path that the lower courts must follow in similar cases

Question 8

What is Statutory Interpretation?

Answer 8

Whe statutes (laws made by Parliament) are not clear, so the courts need to interpret them. They use three rules to interpret statues: The Literal Rule, The Golden Rule and the Mischief Rule.

Question 9

What is the Literal Rule?

Answer 9

When courts apply the plain and literal meaning of the words in a statute, even if the results seem absurd.

Whiteley v Chappell

-Whiteley v Chappell- The statute deemed it illegal for a person to impersonate someone entitled to vote. The defendant used the vote of a dead man. Other statute relating to voting rights outlined that a person must be alive to vote, so by technicality the defendant was not disobeying the law, therefore acquitted

Question 10

What is the Golden rule?

Answer 10

Courts will use the literal meaning unless it leads to and absurd result, in which case they modify the interpretation to avoid this.

R v Allen

R v Allen- The defendant was charged with Bigamy under the statute that whoever married that shall marry another is guilty of an offence. Under a literal interpretation of this, this offence would be impossible to commit becuase the civil law would not recognise a second marriage