Posted by Chester Morton / Monday, 21 November 2016 / No comments
The advantages of Delegated Legislation
Definition
Delegated Legislation simply refers to rules, laws, and
orders issues by bodies other than the Legislature of a state. Law making is
the main duty of a Legislature, however, there are times when because of time,
expertise or for any other reason, the Legislature defers its power to make
laws to other bodies. The laws that are made by these other bodies are referred
to as Delegated Legislation.
ADVANTAGES
Useful in times of emergency
Parliament operates with processes and procedures. This tends
to unduly delay the passing of laws to deal with situations. The use of
Delegated Legislation ensures that in cases of emergency any unforeseen situation
that arises can be swiftly dealt with before it has the chance to get out of
hand.
Reduction in workload of Parliament
The art of modern government is such that so much work is
placed on the legislature to pass laws and or to approve treaties and
international agreements. As a result of this, when some of the job is shifted
to other bodies, then the work load of Parliament is reduced.
Saves time
Coupled to the point above is the fact that it helps
Parliament to make judicious use of its time. The time that would otherwise be
spend on issues that could be dealt with by other bodies, is used to handle
other equally or more important issues.
Creates room for experiments
The use of delegated legislation gives the opportunity to governments
to try a policy on a pilot bases before it is rolled out on a national scale.
Where government officials are not too sure how a policy is going to pan out,
they test is on a much smaller scale, when it succeeds, then it extended to
other parts of the country.
Allows for healthy competition
If a Local Authority tries a policy in their local area and
it succeeds, other Local Government area can copy from them. In Ghana, the
Accra Metropolitan Assembly introduced the registration of taxes as a form of
raising revenue some years ago. When this was found to be largely successful,
it was adopted by many other Metropolitan and District Assemblies.
Existing laws are supplemented
When laws are passed in Parliament, they sometimes leave
broad areas where discretion is given to other bodies or government officials.
It is those on the ground who put in the fine details. This creates the
opportunity for the law to be supplemented.
SAMPLE QUESTIONS
1. a. What is Delegated legislation? [2 marks]
b. Highlight five advantages
of Delegated Legislation. [10 marks]
2. Advance six advantages of Delegated Legislation.
