AC1.1 Processes used for law making

• Order of processes: Green paper, White paper, First reading, Second reading, Committee stage, Report stage, Third reading, Royal assent
• Green paper- a document that is published by the government to gather public opinion on a particular issue.
• White paper - document setting out plans for legislation
• First reading- the bill is read for the first time in the House of Commons
• Second reading- debate on the bill, amendments can be made, and the bill can be sent to committee
• Committee stage- examined by a group made up of different parties MPs and can propose changes
• Report stage - the final stage of the bill's progress through Parliament, where the bill is scrutinised by MPs
• Third reading - the final reading of the bill in the House of Commons. Vote to reject or pass it
• House of Lords- Goes through the same changes
• Royal Assent- Monarch signs it and it becomes a law
• Judicial processes - Statutory interpretation

  Precedent
• Precedent- Judges following decisions of previous cases when choosing sentence
• Decision made by a case in a higher court creates an original precedent for all lower courts to follow
• 2 situations where the precedent does not need to be followed:

  Distinguishing - where the facts in the present case are different enough to reach a different verdict

  Over-ruling - where a court states the decision made in an earlier case is wrong
• R v R (1992) - Plead not guilty due to a precedent where a marriage contract gave a wife's irreversible consent to sex
• Statutory interpretation - 3 rules to how judges interpret statutes:

  Literal rule

  Golden rule

  Mischief rule
• Literal rule - where the words are taken literally and the meaning of the sentence is determined by the literal meaning of the words.

  R v Maginnis - different judges found different meanings for the word supply
• Golden rule - Literal rule can lead to an absurd result. Allows court to modify literal meaning

  Adler vs George - Vicinity of a naval base
• Mischief rule - allows court to to enforce what the statue was intended to achieve

  Corkery v Carpenter - offence to be in charge of a carriage drunk

  Argued not guilty because he was in charge of a bicycle