The British constitution, law reform and the （英国宪法、法律改革和）.pdf

The British constitution, law reform and the 1 parliamentary legislative process This topic enables you: • To appreciate the role of Parliament as the dominant law-making power in the British constitution. • To identify the influences on Parliament from law reform bodies, pressure groups and campaigners. • To understand the law-making processes within Parliament. • To identify the powers in the British constitution. • To recognise that there are limits to the supremacy of Parliament in law-making. • To take account of the importance of European Community (EC) law and its impact on the English legal system (to be read in conjunction with Chapter 5). • To appreciate the far-reaching significance of some parliamentary law, such as the Human Rights Act 1998. Most of this chapter will concern itself with the way in which law is made by Parliament. Parliament creates written law referred to as legislation or statute law. Legislation or statutes passed by Parliament take the form of Acts of Parliament. You can see from the illustration below, and from Chapters 1–5, that there are four main sources of law in the English legal system, of which Acts of Parliament are seen as the dominant source: 7 8 A S L AW In order to understand Parliament’s law-making role, it is first necessary to consider the place of Parliament within the British constitution and to describe its relationship with the other constitutional powers. THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION AND CONSTITUTIONAL THEORY