Advantages and disadvantages of Acts of Parliament compared to delegated

legislation and common law.

First paragraph: Advantages of Acts of Parliament compared to delegated legislation.
Second paragraph: Advantages of Acts of Parliament compared to common law.
Third: Disadvantages of Acts of Parliament compared to delegated legislation
Fourth: Disadvantages of Acts of Parliament compared to common law

Advantages of Acts of Parliament.

It is referred to as primary legislation as they are the highest form of law and take
priority over common law and delegated legislation.
Its power stems from the doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty------Comparing
legislation with common law, statutes generally have the power to change the
established common law, but the common law cannot overrule or change statutes. A
statute can only be overruled or amended by another, later statute.
Disadvantages of Acts of Parliament.
Authority may not be absolute it has been limited by the relationship with the
European Union, and the importance of principles such as the recognition of
individual freedoms, democracy and governmental accountability may place further
limits on its exercise.
Nevertheless, save for these possible limits in extreme circumstances, the judges
must normally apply statutes, even if they are contrary to established common law.
The task of the judge is to interpret and apply the statute they cannot disregard it
or declare it to be unconstitutional. The judges do have this power to override
statutes by declaring them to be inconsistent with the written constitution.
The legislation will originally have been written by experts who write in precise and
technical language. But the legislation may be amended by non-experts during its
passage through Parliament. And circumstances may be encountered which were
not considered by the draftsmen.
#statutory interpretation
Despite efforts to draft legislation carefully, a number of factors may cause
uncertainty such as the use of broad terms, ambiguous language, future possibilities
may not be foreseen/ possible misinterpretations may be overlooked when the bill is
drafted. Therefore, there are 4 main rules. 1. The literal rule

Advantages of common law.

If no precedent exists or the law is unclear, judges do make law- Airedale NHS thrust
v Bland (1993), Re A (conjoined twins) (2000).
Upholds the doctrine of Parliamentary Sovereignty.
Flexible.
Provides a practical form of law.
Disadvantages of common law
Undemocratic law making judges are unelected.

Advantages of statutory law : law that gives the subject certainty, in

advance, about the consequences of their actions. (Richard Heaton 14 Oct. 2013,
Bentham said)
We have a hybrid system, and it looks like it will stay that way.
In Lord Binghams words, the rule of law requires that the law must be accessible
and so far as possible intelligible, clear and predictable. For legislative drafters, and
for the governments online publishers, this is a fundamental part of our mission.

Undemocratic part.
Lord Scarman pointed out in Stock v Jones (1978) that the judge cannot match the
experience and vision of the legislator; and that unlike the legislator the judge is not
answerable to the people.
Theories, like Griffiths, which suggest that precedent can actually give judges a
good deal of discretion, and allow them to decide cases on grounds of political and
social policy, raise the question of whether judges, who are unelected, should have
such freedom.

(b) The advantages of delegated legislation are the following:

(i) Delegated legislation can be passed very quickly and is more fl exible. This is
because it does not have to undergo the
various stages of procedure which has to be followed in Parliament or the State
Legislative Assemblies. Similarly, if the
need arises, delegated legislation can be just as speedily amended or even
rescinded to meet the changing needs of

society.
(ii) Delegated legislation deals with the detailed rules necessary to implement the
law. As Parliament does not have suffi cient
time to deal with such minute details, delegated legislation is the more effi cient way
to fulfi l this need.
(iii) Certain matters may require the special skill and knowledge of experts in that
area. Parliament itself may not have
suffi cient experts for this purpose. Thus, delegated legislation fulfi ls this need as
well.
The disadvantages of delegated legislation are as follows:
(i) The growth of delegated legislation goes against the doctrine of separation of
powers. This is because law is not being
passed by persons elected for that purpose (i.e. the legislature). Instead it is being
passed by offi cers of government
departments.
(ii) Parliament is unable to effectively supervise the making of delegated legislation
due to lack of time. As a consequence,
many rules and regulations may have been passed without proper consideration of
some very important factors.
(iii) Too much law is passed through delegated legislation without suffi cient
Parliamentary control.