2A.2.4 Advantages and disadvantages of delegated legislation Flashcards
Advantages of delegated legislation
1) Saves parliamentary time
2) Access to technical expertise
3) Allows consultation
4) Allows quick law making
5) Easy to amend
Disadvantages of delegated legislation
1) Undemocratic
2) Sub-delegation
3) Large volume and lack of publicity
4) Complex and difficult to understand
5) Parliamentary controls are inadequate
[Advantage of delegated legislation]
1) Saves parliamentary time
Parliament does not have time to consider and debate every small detail of complex regulations. Making such regulations through delegated legislation saves parliamentary time.
[Advantage of delegated legislation]
2) Access to technical expertise
Modern society has become very complicated and technical, so that it is impossible that members of Parliament can have all the knowledge needed to draw up laws on complex areas. By using delegated legislation, the necessary experts can be consulted.
[Advantage of delegated legislation]
3) Allows consultation
Ministers can have the benefit of further consultation before regulations are drawn up.
Consultation is particularly important for rules on technical matters, where it is necessary to make sure that the regulations are technically workable.
[Advantage of delegated legislation]
4) Allows quick law making
As already seen the process of passing an Act of Parliament can take a considerable time and, in an emergency, Parliament may not be able to pass law quickly enough.
Orders in Council, especially, can be made very quickly to deal with disasters or terrorist threats.
[Advantage of delegated legislation]
5) Easy to amend
Delegated legislation can be amended or revoked easily when necessary, so that the law can be kept up to date.
This is useful where monetary limits have to change each year as, for example, the minimum wage or the limits for legal aid.
Ministers can also respond to new or unforeseen situations by introducing a statutory instrument.
This is another reason why use of delegated legislation is sometimes preferred to an Act of Parliament.
[Disadvantage of delegated legislation]
2) Sub-delegation
Another problem is that of sub-delegation, which means that the law-making authority is handed down another level.
This causes comments that much of our law is made by civil servants and merely “rubber stamped” by the minister of that department.
[Disadvantage of delegated legislation]
1) Undemocratic
The main criticism is that delegated legislation takes law making away from the democratically elected House of Commons and allows non-elected people to make the law.
This is acceptable provided there is sufficient control, but, as already seen, Parliament’s control is fairly limited.
This criticism cannot be made of bylaws made by local authorities since these are elected bodies and accountable to the local citizens.
[Disadvantage of delegated legislation]
3) Large volume and lack of publicity
The large volume of delegated legislation also gives rise to criticism, since it makes it difficult to discover what the present law is.
The problem is aggravated by a lack of publicity, as much delegated legislation is made in private and passed through Parliament without debate, in contrast to the public debates of statutory law.
[Disadvantage of delegated legislation]
4) Complex and difficult to understand
Delegated legislation shares with Acts of Parliament the same problem of complex and obscure wording that can lead to difficulty in understanding what the law means.
Rules of statutory interpretation may have to be used by the courts to understand the meaning of this form of legislation.
[Disadvantage of delegated legislation]
5) Parliamentary controls are inadequate
Lots of pieces of delegated legislation = not all of them are given proper scrutiny before they come into force.
Very difficult to remove a piece of legislation once it has come into force.
Much legislation made in this way is very technical.
Those scrutinising it are not experts and don’t have sufficient knowledge in the relevant law to be able to assess if it has been validly made.
Scrutiny committees can only make recommendations to Parliament who may/not follow their recommendations.
