Foundations Of English Law And European Law

Introduction

The end of strong parliamentary majorities era demonstrated in the general election of may 2010 in Britain and adoption of a coalition system of Government should surely be welcomed. The dominance of the political process in parliamentary law making was clearly inadequate for producing well structured and effective laws for England and Wales as is demonstrated by the poor quality of the legislation produced. With both Labour and conservatives gaining similar strengths in the parliamentary elections, it become impossible to determine who among the two principals i.e. conservative leader and the Labour leader should become the Prime Minister. In Britain, the parliament particularly the House of Commons is the body responsible for making laws that govern the land. However, before any bill becomes a law it has to pass through several stages.

In parliament terms, Parliament (2010) puts that “a bill is a proposal for a new law or a proposal to change an existing law presented for debate before parliament”. After the introduction of the bill in parliament, it goes through three stages; first reading, second reading which is divided into two again i.e. committee stage and report stage and then the last stage which is third reading.

At the first reading, there is little that is done to the bill since the bill is read out and is then published. It then proceeds to the second stage where by Members of Parliament debate the main principles contained in the bill. The opposition parties give their opinions on the bill and it is then decided upon by voting. If the majority likes the bill, it proceeds to the next stage. At this point, the parliamentary process of making law have some inadequacies since bills that are produced by the government who in most cases have the majority in the house have an easy task of swaying the vote in their favour without necessarily examining the bill thoroughly and making necessary amendments to it. This always leads to the passage of bills that have some lope holes.

It is at this point that the coalition system of government is welcomed since there is no one single side of the house that can easily sway the direction of the bill. This therefore calls for thorough analysis and necessary amendments before a bill can get the acknowledgement of the majority at this stage. This therefore provides for a good platform for making sound legislations for the land.

In addition, the government bills are in most cases timetabled after they have passed through the second reading. With the coalition government in place, it will be healthy for formulation of sound bills since each side will have to scrutinize the bills that are introduced with the other partner before they are agreed upon as the government. It is healthy since within the coalition government itself; there exist checks and balances which is good in crafting of sound legislations for the country.

However, to this point it is also important to note that with the adoption of a coalition government, the opposition in the house was weakened and therefore the critical role that the opposition is supposed to play is not being accomplished. This is likely to impair the quality of laws that are enacted in parliament. For example, in parliament, there are days that are spared for the opposition to question the government. Since two major political parties are in a joint government, there will be weak opposition that will be in a position to positively critique the government on its legislations and other matters of accountability.

There exist inadequacies in the composition and function of the House of Commons. A house of common with a more “balanced mix of parties might become powerful in relation to government and undesirable in development …as a strong parliament might as well assist in making government more open, accountable and effective”. One party government has in most cases been less accountable and less effective.

The composition of the House of Commons gives an opportunity for people from diverse social groups to hold public offices. The house of commons also gives a representation of diverse groups. However, in most cases, the decisions made and crafted in the House of Commons are determined by the party with the majority in the house. With the UK traditions and constitution, the party with the majority in the house usually forms the government. In relation to this, legislations and bills that belong to the sitting government usually gets their easy way as their majority party members support their enactment in parliament. This has in most cases led to enactment of poor legislations that fail to stand the test of time as they are only meant to serve the interests of the sitting government.

However, following the May 2010 elections where major parties gained similar strengths in the House of Commons, bills and legislations meant to serve specific party and government interests at the time will be avoided. This gives some hope of enactment and passage of laws that put the country first and which are free from partisan interests.

The House of Commons have four major functions under its mandate. The first function is the prime political forum. This provides for the platform where views are exchanged between the government side and the opposition. In relation to this function, in a situation where one party has the majority of members in the house, there is no constructive exchange of ideas since the ruling party only passes their view and in most cases it leads to a ruling party dictatorial style of leadership in parliament.

The second function of the House of Commons is to make legislations. The sole source of legislation in United Kingdom is the parliament. Most of these legislations are usually initiated by the government and the house of commons is only left with the role to deliberate on them. It is therefore important to note that with the government having the majority in the house, the contribution of the opposition to the bill is usually minimal and in most cases therefore, laws are passed in the house which are not good enough. However, the only remedy for this state of affair is the coalition government where by a government bill will be exhaustively deliberated on the government side before being forward to the House of Commons.

The third function for the House of Commons is to scrutinize administration and policies. This entails scrutinizing the government administration and its policies. This is an important function since the house acts as a check and balance to the government. However, with the ruling party having the majority in the house, this function is usually put in jeopardy as most members in the ruling party put their party interests first.

The final important function of the House of Commons is redress of grievances Page. All members of House of Commons are representatives of a certain group of people; they therefore represent the concern of their constituents to the government. It has been a long tradition that the government prioritizes these grievances but higher priorities goes to those that are allied to the ruling party. However, with the coalition government in place, all major parties are part of the government therefore discrimination will not be exhibited. This will force the government to be dealing with matters according to their weight and not as per the political affiliation as was the case in one party government.

It is also important to note that inadequacy in the law making emanates from the process MPs are elected. Elections are held when parliament is dissolved, following the dissolution, every seat in the House of Commons becomes vacant and a general election is held where by each consistency in the UK is supposed to elect one Member of Parliament. However, for one to vie for this seat in house of commons, one has to be allied to one of the political party in UK. Despite one having his own policies and agendas for his constituency and the country at large, one is obliged to abide by the policies of the party sponsoring him or her. For example, when the bills of the party are brought to the floor of the house, the M.P. is required to support them irrespective to the personal principles that one holds. This compromises the standards of law enacted by the parliament as they are not directed by the personal judgment of each law maker but the group ideology in their party which may be for the partisan interests and not for the better of the country at large

Therefore, there exist several changes that need to be instituted to the parliamentary and the political system as a whole. With the formation of a coalition government, the two coalition partners “resolved to put a motion before the House of Commons stating the next general election on the first Thursday of May 2015…this legislation will also provide for dissolution if 55% or more of the house votes in favour”. Since no side of the government did not have vast majority, this meant that there is no side that can walk out of the government at will and that all parties should be committed in the government issues until the end of the five years.

The coalition government also agreed to bring forth a referendum bill that will tackle the electoral reform in the country. The reforms include allowing voters to petition an MP who is not performing in parliament and force a bye election. This kind of reforms will be highly welcomed if the coalition government can whip their members to support the idea. This will make sure that the MPs deliver during the five stipulated period of time. In doing so, it will be beneficial both to the constituents and to the country at large since we will have committed Members of Parliament.

Basing on the inadequacies of law s made from the current law making process in parliament, it is paramount that the general public be involved in the parliamentary process. This will help in ensuring that all major laws made in parliament have a popular view from the general public. It will also guard against passage of legislations that are only in the interest of the political party with the majority in the house.

In addition, the current procedure of timetabling business in the house is opaque since it takes place between chief whips. In most cases, these chief whips are representatives of major political parties and therefore, they prioritize the interests of their parties. Reformation should be done in the legislation process to ensure that before the bill is timetabled, it is scrutinized by independent select committee which should incorporate members of the minority parties so as to remove the partisan interests.

In conclusion, the British law that the party with the majority of the seats in parliament should proceed to form the government has been widely criticized and has failed to properly work well in practice. This law led to a constitutional crisis where by the informal arrangement had to be arrived at to make a coalition government. It is therefore proper that this part of legislation be revised to cover other political eventualities so that another constitutional crisis does not arise again.

Bibliography

Hansard Society, ‘Promoting Democracy: Strengthening Parliament’ HYPERLINK “http://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/” http://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/ accessed 5 January 2011.

Parliament, ‘Passage of a Bill’ HYPERLINK “http://www.parliament.uk/about/how/laws/passage-bill/” http://www.parliament.uk/about/how/laws/passage-bill/ accessed 4 January 2011.

S Weiver and D Beetham, Political Power and Democratic Control in Britain (Routledge, London 1999)

Cases

AC Page, M.P.s and the redress of grievance [1985] Public Law 1