The Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949, Why Legislative Structure and Procedure Requires Reform - Coursework Example

 ‘The process by which laws are made is old fashioned and complicated. The significance of the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 in the legislative process is limited. The current legislative structure and procedure requires reform.’ Introduction There is no denying the fact that legislating is the primary function of the parliament in the UK. So far as the task of legislation is concerned in Great Britain, the core institution that is responsible for it is the Parliament at Westminster. The British parliament tends to consider five types of bills that are Government Bills, Statutory Instruments, Private Member’s Bills, Hybrid Bills and Private Bills. One thing that needs to be considered is the fact that while enacting laws or while giving effect to the laws, in a way the Parliament impinges on the rights and privileges of the individuals and groups by automatically conferring on these individuals and groups a wide range of responsibilities and duties. To a large extent the individual citizens are also largely impacted by the fact that the process and consequences of legislation in the enactment of laws extends to the government many powers and places many responsibilities on the state. It also needs to be noted that the legislative powers extended to the Parliament are in a pragmatic context, limitless and boundless. Hence, in a way the Parliament has the power to make happen or do anything by enacting laws, which it could not do in the regular course of things (Grant 2009). To some extent this abrogation of legislative powers to the Parliament is justified in the sense that it is the state that is responsible for managing and running a majority of the edifices that define government like the National Health Service, housing, social security system, schools and universities, law and order, transportation, management of civic services, etc. However, the current process and procedure of enacting laws is old fashioned and obsolete in the sense that it fails to confabulate as to how it can involve people and common citizens in the process of making laws in a practical and direct manner. A democratic, viable, accountable and responsible system for making laws should fulfil many criteria and one such criterion is that how it envisages the cooperation and participation of ordinary citizens in the making of the law (Grant 2009). It is also said that only those governments tend to govern the best that rely on a minimal body of laws. Hence, one other major complaint that is oft raised about the law making process is that owing to the functioning of the law making bodies there now is a large volume of laws, which further complicate and confuse the actual implementation and functioning of laws. No wonder there at present is a large volume of law that are waiting to be enacted and passed by the Parliament. Justice delayed is justice denied. Hence, the very large volume of laws which have been passed or are waiting in the pipeline is making the governance of the UK as a vibrant democracy, much unwieldy, complex and complicated (Grant 2009). Thereby the very process by which laws are made in Great Britain is old and obsolete and the current mechanisms and procedures for making laws need to be reformed. Too Many Laws One problem with the process of making laws is that the law enactment bodies and institutions tend to adhere to the maxim that each and every social ill, responsibility, privilege or concept needs to be organized by bringing it within the ambit of law. This has given way to a large and complex body of laws that is not only utterly confusing but is also making the enactment of the varied useful and practical laws very difficult and complicated (Watts2003). Courtesy, panache on the part of the Parliament to bring in too many laws, the Great Britain over the past few decades has become an increasingly litigious country. Turning to laws has become a predominant procedure for the people and the government as far as the resolution of issues is concerned. Even the varied trivial social and civil issues are more likely to be brought to the court for resolution. One, in fact wonders as to why these issues were actually brought within the ambit of the law when ordinary goodwill and common sense were ample to resolve them. This ultra legislative approach towards the resolution of civil and social issues is not only disturbing but also tends to make the entire justice system unwieldy and overworked (Watts 2003). One does need to consider the question as to resorting to legal measures and imposing fines and restrictions are the only possible way out of social and legal problems? One other thing that needs to be considered is that this enactment of laws for ameliorating minor issues and problems is also drastically impacting and altering the relationship between the citizens and the state. Many a critics tend to evince the question as to whether the process of making laws is increasingly getting politicized and that the politicians are resorting to the prerogative of making laws to suit their ends? So far there does not is any viable constitutional method to save the provision and process of making laws from getting unnecessarily politicized. In fact this politicization of the law making provisions is actually corrupting the criminal justice system (Watts 2003). This is in a way overburdening the justice system by bringing in needless and senseless new laws, while the old one’s are being ignored and sidelined without even being given a fare chance to be properly implemented. The other bad thing is that the actual issues and problems being faced by the citizens are being sidelined by the legal jargon woven around these too many laws (Watts 2003). The hallmark of any law should be that its intent and purpose should be graspable by any ordinary citizen. This is only possible when there are horizontal and vertical channels for the registration of layman views and aspirations. However, the irony is that the common citizens after being extended the minimal privilege of voting are systematically sidelined from the actual democratic process of making laws. Hence, it leads to the bodies of laws that are not only voluminous, but tend to be too complex and complicated to be grasped by the citizenry. The Parliament predominantly being a political body is churning out too many statutes and laws that are either difficult to apply owing to their complexity or are simply useless and retrogressive. Hence, the one single thing that should be added to the priorities abrogated to the law making bodies and institutions is the need to repeal the laws that have become superfluous and needless with time (Watts 2003). Besides, the law making bodies should make it a point to consider that perhaps they could resort to vary other measures aimed at reform and reconciliation rather than abjectly opting for fines and sentences while making laws. This is only possible when the Parliamentarians have a firm grasp over the actual meaning and the purpose of law and the ways law could be used as an instrument for facilitating interpersonal harmony and reconciliation. It also needs to be mentioned that this panache on the part of the politicians to control and regulate things through the prerogative of penalization is also harming the national economy. It is a known fact that too much of red tape and regulation drastically harms the business and the true spirit of entrepreneurship. In the current times marked by high rate of unemployment, recession, and economic meltdown, coming out with too many laws that are anti-entrepreneurship and contrary to the aspirations of the masses could not do much good to the national economy and polity. Perhaps, for a change, what the Parliament could do is to make a law that abrogates the citizens a chance to recommend laws that should be repealed owing to being obsolete and anti-people. Wide Gap between Popular Aspirations and the Law Making Process One big flaw with the legislative procedure currently being followed by the UK is that it tends to be predominantly in control of the government. Actually speaking, the greater the majority any particular government commands within the Parliament, the more powerful it is to get one’s will and agenda enshrined in the laws being enacted (Bentham 1996). It is the government of the day that mostly initiates any legislation. Even the back bench MPs affiliated to the government do not have much say in the legislation process. The government mostly through the instrument of the Whip makes most of its MPs vote for the legislation being enacted, leaving little scope for any meaningful intervention or interference. Many a time the backbenchers may revolt against any law being enacted by the government, yet, this is a recourse that is very rarely towed by the MPs. Certainly this system has an advantage in the sense that it extends full scope to the government of the day to unravel its agenda based on the manifesto on which it got elected. The bad thing is that the citizens who voted for other parties are left without any meaningful say in the overall legislative process, even if they constitute the majority. One other weakness of the current legislative process that it may shun any meaningful debate on the legislation being enacted and may curtail any relevant scope for inputs from the opposition (Bentham 1996). There have been many times when the government of the day brought forward new laws as an abrupt response to the momentary crises being perceived by the government. For instance, in 1991, The Dangerous Dogs Act was brought into existence by the government of the day in response to some citizens being attacked by dogs. Many well meaning sections of the society put forth the argument that it will be practically impossible to implement this law, still the government went ahead to implement its agenda. The failure of the government to take into consideration the inputs being extended by diverse sections of the society led to the creation of a law that looks good on the books, but has scarcely done much to bring forth the impact it was expected to yield. Hence, the current process and system of making laws leaves much scope for a stark disassociation between the will of the government and the aspirations of the masses. The other flaw in the law making process is that irrespective of its lacuna of giving way to ill cooked laws, very oft it is blamed of being too slow. In fact, so slow that it almost fails to react to the aspirations of the people in a prompt and timely manner. Perhaps, one reason for this is that this process for making laws was brought into existence in those days when the bills happened to be short and the legislatures pursued other professions, besides fulfilling their duty to make laws. In the current social scenario marked by a large number of social issues that need to be brought within the ambit of law, the system turns out to be too slow to respond to the aspirations of the citizens in a prompt and timely manner. In the recent times, people and pressure groups have been campaigning very hard to divest the law making process of its above mentioned flaws and loop holes. The law making process is also facing multiple aspersions like it tends to be discriminative against large sections of the society like the women, going by a very small number of women MPs who have a real say in the law making process. One other repercussion of such a slow law making system and the abundance of petty bills in the pipeline is that it leaves very little time and space for the parliament to repeal laws that have become redundant and unnecessary with time. Thereby, the citizens have to unnecessarily bear with the constraints and handicaps imposed by these redundant laws, irrespective of the fact that the society needs to urgently get rid of them. Also, going by the hasty laws being brought into existence by the parliament, many laws tend to overlap with each other, thereby giving way to much confusion and resentment. The hallmark of a viable law is that it should be easily understandable by the lay man (Bentham 1996). However, going by the large volume of statutes, the complex provisions inherent in them and their overlapping nature, there is very little chance that the enacted laws may be understandable by a majority of the citizens. Though the ignorance of the law does not pass out as a defence in the courts of law, the irony is that a majority of the common people simply do not understand many important laws. Though the bodies and institutions associated with the legislation have been time and again putting forward the excuse that they are going to address these flaws in the system, the fact is that not much has been achieved in this direction. There exists a dire need to make the law making process more simple, rational, democratic and understandable. The longer this is postponed the greater is the chance of violation of laws by the citizens, either because they contradicted their aspirations or because they simply never understood a particular law. The Parliament Act 1911 and 1949 Though the tone of this paper may make any particular reader think that the writer tends to consider all the aspects of law making in Britain to be flawed, the reality is that the true purpose of this paper is that it intends to vouch for making the law making system within the UK more democratic, simple, understandable and precise. It is a fact that the British constitution has undergone multiple changes in the light of the issues and concerns being faced by the masses at varied times in the history of Britain. Hence, all criticism of the British law making procedure rests on the fact that the British constitution and the law making procedure is capable of responding to the aspirations of the people. One needs to unravel the significance of the Parliament Act 1911 and 1949 in the light of the ability and flexibility of the British constitution to change, as and when required. The First Parliament Act that is the Parliament Act 1911, in a way asserted the supremacy of the House of Commons. This Act limited the capacity and power of the House of Lords to block any particular legislation. It made way for the House of Commons to be able to pass legislations without accruing the approval of the House of Lords provided it met the provision enshrined in the Parliament Act 1911. The Parliament Act 1949 amended the Parliament Act 1911 as it further curtailed the power of the House of Lords by shrinking the time period that the House of Lords could block a bill from two years to one year. The one essential significance of the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 is that they set aside the influence of what may be called the elitist sections of the society to have a significant say in the overall law making process and powers of the Parliament. In a way the two Parliament Acts tended to reflect and celebrate the democratic moorings of the British law making system. However, there is no denying the fact that the spirit of the Parliament Acts tends to be somewhat more important than the actual implications in the sense that they brought forth the need to connect the law making process in the UK in consonance with the hopes and aspirations of the common man on the road. The crux of the Parliament Acts is to bring in the public participation in the overall law making process. These Acts highlighted the need for the creation of democratic gateways in the overall law making process in the UK. In fact the Parliament Act 1911 was the result of a direct non-congruence between the House of Lords and the liberal government of that day. The Government of Clement Attlee took these reforms a step further after the Second World War by amending the Parliament Act 1911. However, the reform measures brought into existence by the Parliament Acts have been treading too slow as far as the reform of the British law making procedure of the day is concerned. Governments have time and again identified the need to tag the law making process in the UK to the will and aspirations of the masses and to make the complete law making procedure more democratic and egalitarian. However, there is no dearth of the vested interests within the Parliament that are not only averse to such reforms in the law making process as it will curtail their privileges, but are also doing their best to hamper and stall the intended reforms. If left to governments, these reforms will be utterly slow in the coming. Hence, the citizens need to get proactive regarding their political rights and must organize themselves into pressure groups and lobbies to stimulate the pace of reforms being intended in the British law making procedure. Conclusively, the UK is a democratic society and all the edifices of power within the UK including the Parliament and the law enactment procedures must subscribe to such democratic aspirations. Conclusion What needs to be understood is that law is not a shrivelled and desiccated relic that is impervious to any scope for change or reform, but rather happens to be an organic entity that is accurately responsive to the will and aspirations of the people. The Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 do testify to the fact that the British polity is essentially democratic and is open to change and reforms. However, hitherto all the efforts aimed at making the law making procedures simpler, codified, democratic and participative have been too slow and limited. Both the governments and above all the people must resort to concerted and proactive efforts to make the British law making procedure more responsive and participative. Reference List Bentham, Jeremy 1996, An Introduction to the Principals of Morals and Legislation, Clarendon Press, Oxford. Grant, Moyra 2009, The UK Parliament, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh. Watts, Duncan 2003, Understanding US/UK Government and Politics, Manchester Manchester University Press, Manchester. Read More