17. Delegated Legislation
… the central problem relating to
legislative review of executive and administrative law-making is the degree to
which Parliament should involve itself in attempting to influence and control
the course of administration. If Parliament goes too far into the substance of
day-to-day administration, it defeats many of the underlying reasons for
delegating powers to make laws in the first place… .
Special Committee on Statutory Instruments, Third Report
(Journals, October 22, 1969, p. 1482)
S
ome acts of Parliament delegate to
Ministers, departments, agencies, boards or other authorities the power to make
and apply subordinate legislation described only in general terms in the acts.
Delegated legislation is a term used to describe these regulations, orders,
rules, by-laws and other instruments. Parliament scrutinizes most delegated
legislation to ensure that their provisions do not exceed the powers approved by
Parliament itself.
This responsibility to scrutinize delegated
legislation has been assigned to the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny
of Regulations. In addition to the terms of reference set out by the House
itself, this Committee’s mandate is in part described by an act of
Parliament. [1]
Its
activities sometimes lead to the invocation of special procedures in the House
when the Committee makes a report to the House advocating the revocation of a
regulation.
This chapter discusses the mandate of the
Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations and the procedures the
House follows to adopt or reject a report recommending the revocation of a
statutory instrument.