Delegated Legislation (DL) EVAL Flashcards
Saves P’s Time (+)
Allowing other bodies to make law = P’s time is freed up
P has 650 MPSs in HoC - any Acts passed involve a lot of debate and a lot of time (on average 1-2 years to be passed)
Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 - enabled the Minister of Work and Pensions to make regulations through a SI relating to health and safety in all types of work places
Allows P to concentrate on national matters e.g. financial budgets, BREXIT, COVID
Specialist (+)
SIs allow specific Government departments and ministers to make rules for their area of speciality
PACE ‘84 - allows MoJ to set the police Codes of Practice using his understanding of the CJS
These rules may have to be complex and require specialist knowledge to understand which these departments and ministers would have (P wouldn’t have this knowledge - hard to make laws as effectively)
Local areas/knowledge (+)
Enabling local Councils to make by-laws = assess particular needs of the locality and respond by making laws to deal with the specific issues
e.g. there may be a problem with excessive drinking and crime in certain parts of town - a local Council can pass a by-law making that area an alcohol-free zone
Law can be made by people who know the local area and will have an understanding of how best to solve problems in that area (which P may not be able to do themselves)
Numerous Controls (+)
Scrutiny Committee check SIs for P and courts can declare DL ultra vires in some situations
e.g. correct procedure was not followed in ATB v Aylesbury Mushrooms so the courts declared the DL as void
Ensures that DL works in the way that P intended
Undemocratic (-)
Privy Council who makes Orders in Council is made up of elected MPs but also unelected judges and bishops and SIs are often made by unelected civil servants
e.g. SI was passed in 2012 by the MoJ restricting the rights of immigrants to get legal aid + was made ultra vires due to possiblity of not resonating with public opinion
Important laws may not represent what the public want
Volume and Publicity (-)
3000+ SIs and several thousand by-laws are made each year often with little publicity
e.g. British Airports Authority passed a by-law stopping passengers from taking tennnis racquets on planes - a passenger was fined for doing this despite being unaware of doing anything wrong
impossible for the average person to be aware of all these laws - individuals and companies may be unaware of what is legal and illegal
Difficult Wording (-)
DL can be long and complicated + often requires judges to interpret the wording to fully understand them
e.g. R (Rogers) v Swindon NHS Trust - the case involved technical rules and specific drugs, and the court had to deal with what was ‘exceptional’ in relation to medical needs
Hard to the public to understand DL and it could be unclear how exactly they should apply in practice
Ineffective Controls (-)
Scrutiny Committee can only refer problems to P and hope they decide to take action + very few judicial reviews are successful
e.g. 2018 - nearly 3600 reviews were requested but only 184 cases went ahead and the Government lost 40% of these
There may be quite a lot of bad DL being made that is not being resolved properly - this is problematic
