Legislation - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Legislation is law which has been promulgated

Promulgation

Promulgation is the act of formally proclaiming or declaring a new statutory or administrative law after its enactment. In some jurisdictions this additional step is necessary before the law can take effect....

(or "enacted") by a legislature

Legislature

A legislature is a kind of deliberative assembly with the power to pass, amend, and repeal laws. The law created by a legislature is called legislation or statutory law. In addition to enacting laws, legislatures usually have exclusive authority to raise or lower taxes and adopt the budget and...

or other governing body

Government

Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...

, or the process of making it. (Another source of law is judge-made law or case law

Case law

In law, case law is the set of reported judicial decisions of selected appellate courts and other courts of first instance which make new interpretations of the law and, therefore, can be cited as precedents in a process known as stare decisis...

.) Before an item of legislation becomes law it may be known as a bill

Bill (proposed law)

A bill is a proposed law under consideration by a legislature. A bill does not become law until it is passed by the legislature and, in most cases, approved by the executive. Once a bill has been enacted into law, it is called an act or a statute....

, and may be broadly referred to as "legislation" while it remains under consideration to distinguish it from other business. Legislation can have many purposes: to regulate, to authorize, to proscribe, to provide (funds), to sanction, to grant, to declare or to restrict.

Under the Westminster system

Westminster System

The Westminster system is a democratic parliamentary system of government modelled after the politics of the United Kingdom. This term comes from the Palace of Westminster, the seat of the Parliament of the United Kingdom....

, an item of primary legislation is known as an Act of Parliament

Act of Parliament

An Act of Parliament is a statute enacted as primary legislation by a national or sub-national parliament. In the Republic of Ireland the term Act of the Oireachtas is used, and in the United States the term Act of Congress is used.In Commonwealth countries, the term is used both in a narrow...

after enactment.

Legislation is usually proposed by a member of the legislature (e.g. a member of Congress or Parliament), or by the executive, whereupon it is debated by members of the legislature and is often amended before passage

Passage

-Other meanings:* Passage , a long room or hall leading to other rooms* Passage , a form of trained slow, animated trot performed by a horse* Passage , the process of approving a proposed law...

. Most large legislatures enact only a small fraction of the bills proposed in a given session

Session

-Bureaucracy:*Executive session, a portion of the United States Senate's daily session*Legislative session*Session *Session , a governing body in Presbyterian polity*Court of Session, the supreme civil court of Scotland...

. Whether a given bill will be proposed and enter into force is generally a matter of the legislative priorities of government.

Legislation is regarded as one of the three main functions of government, which are often distinguished under the doctrine of the separation of powers

Separation of powers

The separation of powers, often imprecisely used interchangeably with the trias politica principle, is a model for the governance of a state. The model was first developed in ancient Greece and came into widespread use by the Roman Republic as part of the unmodified Constitution of the Roman Republic...

. Those who have the formal power to create legislation are known as legislator

Legislator

A legislator is a person who writes and passes laws, especially someone who is a member of a legislature. Legislators are usually politicians and are often elected by the people...

s; a judicial branch

Judiciary

The judiciary is the system of courts that interprets and applies the law in the name of the state. The judiciary also provides a mechanism for the resolution of disputes...

of government will have the formal power to interpret legislation (see statutory interpretation

Statutory interpretation

Statutory interpretation is the process by which courts interpret and apply legislation. Some amount of interpretation is always necessary when a case involves a statute. Sometimes the words of a statute have a plain and straightforward meaning. But in many cases, there is some ambiguity or...

); the executive branch of government can act only within the powers and limits set by the law.

Alternate means of law-making

The function and procedures are primarily the responsibility of the legislature. However, there are situations where legislation is made by other bodies or means, such as when constitutional law

Constitutional law

Constitutional law is the body of law which defines the relationship of different entities within a state, namely, the executive, the legislature and the judiciary....

or secondary legislation is enacted. Such other forms of law-making include referendum

Referendum

A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...

s, constitutional conventions, orders in council or regulations. The term legislation is sometimes used to include these situations, or the term primary legislation
Primary legislation
Primary legislation is law made by the legislative branch of government. This contrasts with secondary legislation, which is usually made by the executive branch...

may be used to exclude these other forms.

External links

Legislation available on the web

Legislation available in XML on the web

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.