AC 1.1

• Types of questions for AC 1.1

  • explain how government/ parliament make laws
  • asked to identify stages within government law making process
  • asked to describe/explain how judiciary contributes to the law making process
  • you could be asked to explain/ describe the law making process
• How to Answer Ac 1.1 questions

  Judges questions-

  • Para 1- Judical precedent and examples
  • para 2- statutory interpretation (examples)
  • if 6 marks add an intro para explain roles of judges

  government questions

  • para 1- the paper stages and the intro of the houses
  • para 2- stages within the houses and royal asset
  • if 6 marks add examples of acts
• What’s the parliament

  • the uk parliament democracy
  • laws are made by passing acts of parliament
  • laws are referred to as statues/legislation
• House of commons

  • made up elective representatives of people
  • 650 MPs
  • each mp elected in general election
  • each MP represents their constituency- an area country that has elected them
• House of Lords

  • Members that are referred to as peers- 800
  • traditionally peer was a nobleman eg duke or baron they hereditary position- they have passed their peerage onto the next generation
  • today there are only 92 hereditary peers
  • there are 26 Church of England bishops and arch bishops
  • the rest of the members are life peers cannot pass peerages onto their children
  • lords check new laws
• The monarch

  • in the UK the king plays a constitutional role in opening and dissolving parliament and approving bills before they become a law
• What is a Bill

  • Proposal for a new law
• Green paper

  • initial report to trigger public discussion of the subject includes questions for interested individals and organisations to respond to
• White paper

  • after a consultation , the government publishes the white paper
  • sets detailed plans for legislation
  • includes a draft version of the bill to put before parliament
• Government processes of Law making

  1. first reading
  2. second reading
  3. the committee stage
  4. the report stage
  5. third reading
  6. the lords
  7. royal assent
• First Reading

  • the government introduces the bill into the commons (sometimes the lords)- formal announcement of the bill. Followed by a vote
• Second Reading

  • main principles of the bill are considered and debated in the House of Commons and a vote is taken
  • if the government has the support of a majority of the MPs they win an the bill is passed onto the next stage
• The committee stage-

  • the bill is looked at in detail
  • done by a small committee of MPs from different parties
  • report back to the House of Commons and vote is taken
  • if the government has the support of the majority of MPs they win and the bill goes to the next stage
• The report Stage

  • this gives MPs the opportunity to look at the committees report and will debate on the vote of amendments
  • some major bills may hold debates over several days
• Third reading

  • Final chance for the commons to debate the bills contents
  • no further amendments are allowed the house votes to pass or reject the bill
• The lords

  • the bill goes to the House of Lords
  • it goes through the same stages as the commons
  • it goes back to the House of Commons so MPS can decide to accept or reject their amendments
  • the House of Commons of commons will have the final say as they are elecred representatives of the people
• Royal assent

  • once passed by both houses it is signed by the monarch
  • this is their agreement to turn the bill into an act of parliament/a law
  • their new law then comes into force straight away
• Some examples of criminal statutes

  • the criminal justice act 2003- double jeporady Ann ming
  • the crime sentences act 1997- introduced mandatory minimum sentences for a range of repeat offenders, such as automatic life sentences
  • the dangerous dogs act 1991- this was rushed through parliament due to media led moral panic. As a result it wasn’t given due consideration and many flaws have become apparent eg it blames the breed not the deed
• House of Lords can stop a bill for up to a year (although House of Commons could bypass this) House of Lords do not get involved with bills on taxes
• Judicial precedent

  • past decisions of judges create laws for future judges to follow
  • this is based on the principle of standing by a decision: in Latin- ‘stare decisis’
• How does judical precedent link to unit 3

  • where the point of law in a case Today is should be the same as a previous case
  • the judge should follow the decision made in the previous case
  • this creates certainty, consistency and fairness in the legal system
• Common Law- Judicial precedent

  • many laws have been created using this system
  • this has created a single set of Laws common to the whole country known as ‘common laws’
• The court hierarchy:

  • legal system has hierarchy of courts
  • decisions made in a higher court creates an original or binding precedent for all lower courts
  • this must be followed by all courts in similar cases
• Exceptions to precedent.

  • distinguishing
  • overruling
• Distinguishing

  • a precedent from an earlier case is only binding on a present case
  • if the legal principle involved is the same and if the facts are similar in both cases
  • distinguishing means the judge finds the facts in the present case are different from the previous one and will allow them to reach a different decision and not follow precedent
• Overruling

  • this is where a court higher up the hierarchy states that a legal decision in an earlier case is wrong and overturns it eg the Supreme Court can overrule a lower courts decision when it hears an appeal.
• Statutory interpretation definition

  • judges can make laws by the way they interpret the statutes or acts of parliament
  • statute is a written law
  • judges need to interpret the meaning of words and apply them to cases they are judging
• Interpretation rules include

  • golden rule
  • literal rule
  • mischief rule
• The literal law

  • judges should use the everyday meaning words in a statute but words can have several meanings
  • eg R v Maginnis (1987) case involving illegal drugs- different meanings were found for word supply
• The golden rule

  • The literal rule can be absurd so golden rule in place to avoid this
  • eg under the official secrets act (1920) offence to obstruct her majesty’s forces in the vicinity of (near to) a prohibited place such as a naval place
  • an example of this is Adler v George (1964) Adler stated he had not broken the law because he was not literally in the vicinity of a prohibited place but was actually in it. Court applied the absurd result
• The mischief rule

  • allows courts to reinforce what the statute was intended to achieve, rather than actual words said
  • eg licensing act (1872) makes it an offence to be drug in charge of a carriage on the high way
  • in Corkery v carpenter (1951) found guilty even though it was a bike
• Example of the literal rule: Whitely v Chappell

  • If defendant pretended to be someone who had recently died in order to use that persons vote. It is an offence to ‘impersonate any person entitled to vote‘. Court held that because dead people cannot vote, the defendant was held not to have committed an offence
• Donoghue vs Stevenson

  • 2 friends visited a cafe and one drank a bottle of ginger beer, remains of decomposing nails in it, women fell ill and sued the manufacture, won her case, the court decided a duty of care owed by the manufacturer to the women. Known as the ‘neighbour Principle‘ this case was founded in the modern day law of negligence
• Daniel’s vs White

  • the claimant bought a bottle of lemonade and when he was drunk he felt a burning reaction in his throat
  • lemonade was found to have a corrosive metal in it
  • the case of donoghue vs stevenson was used when suing for compensation even though the facts were slightly different
  • sufficiently similar for the purpose of precedent