The Parliamentary Legislative Process

‘The Parliamentary legislative process fails to achieve its primary purpose: it fails to ensure effective legislative scrutiny of Parliamentary Bills.’ Discuss.

Introduction

• This essay will discuss the process of scrutinising Parliamentary Bills in the United Kingdom and the extent to which this process has been effective throughout the years.

• Some argue that Parliament has been effective in achieving its purpose; scrutinising Parliamentary Bills.

• On the other hand, others argue that Parliament has failed to achieve that.

Main Body

• Although Parliament does not usually make law, it has the important role of scrutinising Bills. This involves close inspection and proposed amendments made by both the House of Commons and the House of

The Rule of Law refers to the principle that law should govern a nation instead of being governed by the decisions of individual governments. The complexity of Parliamentary Bills make the legislative process more time consuming, harder to comprehend and as a result it makes it harder to reach to a final decision. In this respect Parliamentary scrutiny can be said to undermine the rule of

According to a committee’s annual report , emergency legislation does not allow the proper scrutiny of Parliamentary Bills. This occurs because of the limited time available to scrutinise such Bills which does not allow Parliamentary committees to examine the Bills in detail and propose a variety of amendments.

- Late amendments have also become a growing problem in the United Kingdom. This is particularly evident in matters concerned with Human Rights. Late submission of amendments does not allow enough time for the committees to discuss the matters and accept or reject such amendments which as a result leads to inefficiency to perform their job.

- Some Bills are, therefore, just passed so as to show that both the Parliament and the Monarch are involved in the legislative process.

- Finally, the inability of the Parliament to scrutinise Bills leads to incomplete or flawed legislation. The Criminal Justice Act 2003 was evidenced to be incomplete and inconsistent. The Child Support Act 1991 was also seen as badly flawed. In Smith v Smith and another , is an example of a case where it was found by the courts that the Act was uncertain and unclear.

• Arguments in favour of the Parliament’s efficiency in scrutinising