The legislative Process, law reform and the Law Commission 1.3

Parliament is the highest source of law
Parliament can make or change any law it wants

What goes against the UK's Parliamentary Sovereignty?

EU law - Factortame
Human Rights Law - HRA 1998

Acts of Parliament

What 3 bodies make up Parliament? 
House of Lords
House of Commons
The Crown (Queen) - Royal Assent 

Public Bill: Affects the general public and apply to the country as a whole, put forward by Government departments

Private Members Bill: Introduced into Parliament by induvidual back bench MP's who are not part of Government - Draw attention to issues 

Private Bills: Usually proposed by a local authority, public corporation or large public company e.g. To build a road or a bridge 

• Before introduction of a Bill there must be...
  Green Paper - setting out proposals + inviting comments
  White Paper - Follows the responses + More detailed proposals 
• House of Commons
  First reading
  Second reading
  Committee stage                          READ READ STAGE STAGE READ
  Report stage
  Third reading
• House of Lords
  Similar process to HOC
  Discuss further 

To keep the law up to date with the modern society/
Ensure all law complies with a modern society 

Parliament - (Through the Legislative process)

Judges through case law 
Case example Fitzpatrick V Sterling Housing Agency - HOL reversed the desicon of the County Court and the Court of Appeal

• Law Commission
• Iduviduals
• Media
• Pressure groups - Greenpeace
• Royal Commissioners
• Public inquries 
• Other temporary enquries - Lord Woolf's review of the Civil Justice system
• Judges opnions through judgements 

The Commission was set up under the Law Commissions Act 1965

(Full time permenant body)

5 Commissioners - High court judge, Barrister, Solicitor and 2 legal executives 

• Codify law
• Remove anomolies
• Repeal obsolete law
• consolidate the law
• Simplify and modernise the law

• Lord Chancellor
• Government departments
• Law Commission can decide on projects itself

• Find an area of the law that has problems
• Consulation paper will be posted asking for comments 
• Finally the Commission will draw up a report making reccomendations for change
• A draft Bill is proposed if the legislation is proposed
• It is then up to Government to decide whether or not to introduce the Bill as an Act of Parliament

Successes:
Repealed thousands of obselete laws
The Statute Repeals Act in 2008 led to 260 full Acts and parts of a further 68 to be repealed

Failures:

• Failure to codify - Set out to codify Family law, contract law and Landlord and Tenant law but abandoned them
• Attempt to codify Criminal Law was too ambitious and complex - failed
• Only one third of the Commissions projects are implemented 

Groups that will use various methods to influence Parliament to change the law on a particular area - Influencing change
Methods can include - Petitions, demonstrations and strikes

Name an example of a pressure group - Greenpeace (worldy issues)