Chapter 2Law makingCriminal Justice in 1991, following several well-publicised
cases involving miscarriages of justice, marked a depar-
ture from the practice of the previous decade. Some
Royal Commissions operate as standing advisory bodies.
For example, the Royal Commission on Environmental
Pollution, which was established in 1970, continues to
report on special study topics; current studies include
artificial light in the environment and adapting to clim-
ate change.
Political parties and pressure groups
At election time, the political parties compete for our
votes on the basis of a package of social and economic
reforms which they promise to carry out if elected. The
successful party is assumed to have a mandate to imple-
ment the proposals outlined in its election manifesto.
Manifesto commitments, however, form only part of a
government’s legislative programme. Other competing
claims to parliamentary time must be accommodated.
For example, legislation may be required in connection
with our membership of the EU, or to give effect to
a proposal from the Law Commission or a Royal Com-
mission, or simply to deal with an unforeseen emer-
gency. Government claims on Parliament’s time will
alter during its period in office, as policy changes are
made in response to pressures from within Westminster
or in the country at large. One of the most significant
extra-parliamentary influences on the formulation and
execution of government policies is pressure-group
activity. Pressure groups are organised groups of people
seeking to influence or change government policy with-
out themselves wishing to form a government.
Some pressure groups represent sectional interests in
the community. The Confederation of British Industry
(CBI), for example, represents business interests, while
other pressure groups are formed to campaign on a
single issue. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
(CND), for example, is concerned solely with the cause
of nuclear disarmament. Pressure groups use a variety of
techniques to promote their causes, from holding pub-
lic demonstrations to more direct attempts to gain the
support of MPs (known as ‘lobbying’). Pressure-group
activity may be negative in the sense of mobilising oppo-
sition to a proposed government measure, or positive, in
seeking to persuade the government to adopt a specific
proposal in its legislative programme or to win over a
backbench MP, hoping that he will be successful in the
ballot for private members’ bills.
Law-making processes
So far we have considered the main causes of legal
change. We will now examine the mechanics of change.
The expression ‘sources of law’ is often used to refer to
the various ways in which law can come into being. The
main sources of law today are legislation (Acts of Par-
liament), case law (judicial precedent) and EU law.Legislation
Legislation is law enacted by the Queen in Parliament in
the form of Acts of Parliament or statutes. Parliament is
made up of two chambers: the House of Commons and
the House of Lords. The Commons consists of 646 elected
Members of Parliament (MPs) who represent an area of
the country called a constituency. The political party
which can command a majority of votes in the Commons
forms the governmentand its leader becomes the Prime
Minister. Ministers are appointed by the Prime Minister
to take charge of the various government departments.
The most important ministers form the Cabinet, which
is responsible for formulating government policy.
The House of Lords, in contrast, is not an elected body.
In recent years it has been subject to reform involving
changes to its membership and a review of its role, func-
tions and powers. The first stage of reform involved the
removal of the right of most hereditary peers to sit and
vote in the House. Following the changes made by the
House of Lords Act 1999, the House of Lords is composed
of 605 life peers , 92 hereditary peers (75 were elected by
their peers and 17 were royal or elected office holders),
23 Law Lords and 26 spiritual peers (the Archbishops of
Canterbury and York, and 24 bishops of the Church of
England). The government published its proposals for
the next stage of reform of the House of Lords in Septem-
ber 2003 but in March 2004 it announced that it did
not intend to proceed with legislation to implement the
changes proposed in its consultation paper. However,
the government did proceed with its plans to reform the
role of the Lord Chancellor and to establish a Supreme
Court to replace the system of Law Lords hearing appeals
as a Committee of the House of Lords. Under the Con-
stitutional Reform Act 2005 the Lord Chancellor con-
tinues to be a government minister at Cabinet level with
responsibility for the judiciary and the court system but15