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Contents
Home.
Only Half a Democracy.
How Government Fails Us.
Government and Environment.
Global Context.
Citizens and Corporations.
Taking Liberties.
Why Parliament Fails Us.
What Parliament Should be.
Powers of Ministers.
Legislation.
Accountability.
Controlling Business.
Remedies.
Barriers to Reform.
The Local Dimension.
A New Kind of Party.
Your Issues.
What's New.
References.
Help Needed.
Contact David Smith at:
savingdemocracy@googlemail.com |
Why Parliament Fails Us - Legislation
We set out what parliament's legislative duty should be as follows:
- To pass only laws that:
- . are consistent with election manifestos or justified by circumstances
- . are proportionate to the needs of the situation
- . are not designed to achieve objectives that could be achieved by proper application of existing law
- . are likely to achieve the government's stated objectives
- . preserve human rights
It is quite common for the House of Commons to pass a Bill with virtually no amendments, only for that Bill to be heavily amended (sometimes with government agreement), or in some case defeated in the Lords. Although such defeats can be overruled by use of the Parliament Act, this is rarely done, so some Bills do fail as a result of Lords opposition. Nevertheless much legislation is passed that, in retrospect is judged to be bad or unnecessary. Parliament as a whole deserves no more than 5 out of 10 on this.
Basic navigation on this site is by clicking the relevant item in the contents list. Page Last Updated 19 August 2007. |
