How Does the Parliamentary Act Work - Case Study Example

1 Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 The Parliament Acts pertains to the two Acts of Parliament of the United Kingdom that were enacted in the years 1911 and 1949 respectively. They constitute a portion part of the Constitution of the United Kingdom. The first Act, the Parliament Act 1911, restricted the powers of the House of Lords to block the legislation of the House of Commons, declaring the supremacy of the Commons. It also changed the highest time pertinent to the general elections to be five instead of seven years. On the other hand, the second act amended the Parliament Act 1911. The second act, the Parliament Act 1949, further diminished the power of the Lords by limiting the time they could holdup bills from two years to one. This article is about the British House of Lords. ... The House of Commons pertains to the section of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which is also comprised of the Sovereign and the House of Lords. In this light, it could be noted that the Parliament Acts have been used to enact legislation which ultimately opposes the wishes of the Lords on simply 7 occasions since 1911, an example of which is the enactment of the Parliament Act 1949. However there are still doubts put forward regarding the validity of the 1949 Act, and the members of the Countryside Alliance took a case to court to challenge the validity of the Hunting Act 2004 (Parliamentary Standard Note on the Parliament Acts, 2004). In October 2005, the House of Lords sacked an appeal by the Countryside Alliance, with a strangely large panel of nine law lord’s maintaing that the 1949 Act was valid. A previous Parliament Act, the Parliament Act 1660, was repealed by the Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1969. Parliament Act 1911 The long title of the Parliament Act 1911 is (The Guardian, 2003): The long title (properly, the title) is one of the parts, together with the short title, and the operative provisions (sections and Schedules), which comprise an Act of Parliament or Bill in the United Kingdom and certain other Commonwealth Realms. ... An Act to make provision with respect to the powers of the House of Lords in relation to those of the House of Commons, and to limit the duration of Parliament. The Act serves as a response to the conflict involving the Liberal government and the House of Lords, concluding in the so-called "People's Budget" of the Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George during the year1909, which put forward the initiation of a land tax which was rooted to the ideas of the American tax reformer Henry George. This would have had a key influence on large landowners as well as the Conservative opposition, which is generally comprised of large landowners, if it had a large majority in the Lords. In addition they supposed that money ought to be obtained through the introduction of tariffs on imports, therefore assisting British industry. In the case of the Lords, the new budget was voted down, except the Liberals constructed on the disapproval of the Lords to make reducing the power of the Lords a significant subject of the general election in January 1910. The Parliament Act was planned as a momentary measure, thus its preamble recites: Whereas it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis, but such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation. Nevertheless, the Liberal government did not proceed through with the reform of the Lords, and the composition of the Lords stayed in the similar manner for the 50 years. Life peers were introduced in the 1960s, and the Labor government of 1997–2005 acted on the initial steps to reorganize the Lords, decreasing the number of hereditary peers allowed to attend and vote in the Lords, however as of 2005 the second chamber is still not elected. Provisions of the 1911 Act The 1911 Act blocked the Lords from prohibiting any public legislation that is referenced and had been approved by the Commons. It also limited their ability to holdup such legislation to one month for "money bills" and two years for further bills. The Speaker certifies which bills are money bills. If a money bill is not passed by the Lords without amendment within one month after it is received, the bill can be presented for Royal Assent without being passed by the Lords. For other public bills, the 1911 Act originally provided that a rejected bill would become law without the consent of the Lords, if passed by the Commons in three successive sessions, providing two years elapsed between Second Reading and final passing in the Commons. A money bill is a bill that solely concerns taxation or government spending, as opposed to changes in public law. In the case of the United Kingdom, the Speaker of the House of Commons is the presiding officer of the House of Commons, and is seen in the past as the First Commoner of the Land. The authorization of Royal Assent is the official process by which the Sovereign of the United Kingdom, or the Sovereigns representative in Commonwealth Realms, accomplishes the procedure of the passing of legislation by properly affirmating to an Act of Parliament. The only bill the Lords could prohibit was one to extend the life span of a parliament. The Act could only be used to force through a bill referenced to the Commons and so the Lords also maintained the power to sanction any bill that it had itself initiated. In addition to restricting the authority of the Lords the 1911 Act also ratified the Septennial Act 1715, limiting the maximum duration of any parliament from seven years to five, and provided for payment for MPs. The Houses of Parliament, seen over Westminster Bridge the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative institution in the United Kingdom and British overseas territories (it alone has parliamentary sovereignty). The Septennial Act 1715 was an Act of the Parliament of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1715, to increase the maximum length of a Parliament (and hence between general elections) from 3 years to 7 years. ... A Member of Parliament, or MP, is a representative elected by the voters of an electoral district to a parliament; in the Westminster system, specifically to the lower house. Parliament Act 1949 The 1911 Act was ratified in 1949 by the Labor government under Clement Attlee, to be able to diminish the authority of the Lords further by limiting the time they could holdup bills from three sessions over two years to two sessions over one year. The government had boarded on a radical program of nationalisation and was in fear that it that this would somehow put if off. The modification was put forward as a Bill in 1947; however the Lords tried stopping this change. The Bill on the other hand was reintroduced in 1948 and 1949 prior to the 1911 Act was used to force it through. The employment of the 1911 Act necessitated a delay over three "sessions", so a particular short "session" of parliament was brought in into 1948, with a King's Speech on 14 September 1948, and prorogation on 25 October. In the end, the modified Parliament Act was never used for the intended purposes in the 1940s or 1950s, perhaps since the simple threat of it was sufficient. Validity of the 1949 Act From the time when the 1949 Act was passed, qualms had been put to light by legal academics as to whether the utility of the 1911 Act to enact the 1949 Act, ratifying the 1911 Act itself, was indeed legitimate. Three major concerns were put forward and Plato is credited with the beginning of academia: the body of knowledge, its growth and spread across generations. The constraint on the 1911 Act as employed to extend the life of Parliament would not be well-established provided that the 1911 Act could be utilized to modify itself first. The 1949 Act could be taken into account as the secondary legislation, particularly because it is reliant for its validity on another Act, the 1911 Act, and the standard that courts would revere an Act of Parliament without scrutinizing its origins (as release of parliamentary sovereignty) would not be applicable. In the case of 1911 Act, Parliament (that is, the Commons, the Lords and the Sovereign, working together) could be taken into account to have entrusted its capability to pass legislation to another body (the Commons and the Sovereign, with the exemption of the Lords). Subsequent to the legal principles instituted as the when the United Kingdom authorized legislative powers to assemblies in its colonies in the latter part of the 1900s, a secondary legislative body could not employ the Act under which legislative power was entrusted to them to increase their ability without an express power to do so in the enabling Act. To cater to these concerns, a Law Lord, Lord Donaldson of Lymington, put forward a Private Member's Bill in House of Lords in the 2000-2001 assembly of Parliament (the Parliament Acts (Amendment Bill), which would have had the result of affirming the legality of the 1949 Act, nevertheless ruling out any additional such uses of the Parliament Act to revise itself, or employ it to further change or restrain the powers of the House of Lords. A comparable Bill was introduced in the following session. These Bills did not carry on to a Third Reading. In relation to this, the first legal confrontation made against the 1949 Act is supposed to have been made at some point in the first prosecution for war crimes under the War Crimes Act 1991, R. v. Serafinowicz, however this challenge was discarded. Hereafter, the 1949 Act, and the legality of Acts made under it, continued to be unchallenged until the time after the Parliament Acts were utilized to force through the Hunting Act 2004, at the time the Countryside Alliance raised the question of the validity of the 1949 Act. Members of the Alliance brought this matter to the High Court and then the Court of Appeal in January and February 2005, however it failed to obtain the 1949 Act overturned as being technically unacceptable. In the High Court the wording of the 1911 Act was apprehended not to involve any entrenchment. Support for this conclusion could be attributed from the parliamentary debates on the 1911 Act, wherein an entrenchment article was taken into account but discarded, the Government obviously demonstrating the purpose that being able to create such amendments if necessary. The costs are indistinguishable if the 1949 Act were to be considered illegitimate. Undoubtedly, the Hunting Act 2004 and the War Crimes Act 1991 would in turn be taken into account as unacceptable. The two other Acts which were enacted under the 1949 Act have both since been substituted by other legislation, thus the consequences of them being considered as rather illogical are uncertain. It could be noted that it would not have an effect on the law on the statute books at present, but it could still lead to the ruling of past actions as invalid or illegal. In principle, the two Acts which were under the provisions of the 1911 Act preceding it amendment by the 1949 Act should not be influenced; on the other hand, both distorted the composition of Parliament and these measures could also be unacceptable on the foundation that they are important constitutional changes. References: Bennion, FR 2004, ‘Is the Parliament Act 1949 invalid?’ Times Law. Bradley, A 2006, ‘The reasons given by the law of Lords,’ House of Lords. Kelly, R 2007, ‘The Parliament Acts,’ House of Commons. House of Lords 2005, ‘The Parliament Act of 1949,’ House of Lords Library. Mullen 2007, ‘Reflections on Jackson v Att.Gen.,’ Legal Studies Vol. 27 No.1. ‘Parliamentary Standard Note on the Parliament Acts’ 2004. House of Commons. The Guardian 2003, ‘How does the Parliamentary Act work?’ Guardian News and Media. Read More