30/07/2012
One popular suggestion at our Harrogate conference was the idea of a "sunset clause" for new legislation â a provision whereby law automatically ceases to have effect when its expiry date is reached â unless it is renewed.
The idea goes back to Roman times and although it might sound attractive as a solution to modern problems, it is largely a gimmick. More particularly, it was resurrected in the 1992 Heseltine deregulation farce to give the appearance of "doing something". As far as I am aware, though, no law was ever subject to this provision as a result of UK deregulation initiatives.
One of the reasons why the idea became a non-starter was that, if the law was needed (and why else, in the view of government, would it be passed?) then it should remain on the statute book until it became redundant. Allocating an arbitrary expiry date, requiring active legislative input to keep a law going, merely adds unnecessary complications.
Picking up from
part I of this piece, however, there is a better way of achieving the desired effect â of getting rid of unnecessary or unwanted law. And this is where direct democracy comes in.
In part I, we saw a system whereby all new Acts of Parliament underwent public rather than royal assent, via a referendum in need be, upon the deposition of the signatures of a stated number of objectors.
With existing legislation, the same system could apply, only the bar might be higher. Whereas a valid objection to new legislation might require 100,000 signatures, to object to an existing law might need as many as one million signatures to trigger a referendum.
Here, though, we are talking about Acts of Parliament, not the infamous Statutory Instruments (SIs) of which thousands are produced each year. During our conference, a strong preference was expressed for their abolition, but again â for the more substantive measures â we could again look at the objection/referendum route.
What we must recall though is the proposal on
local government, where Counties or other agreed structures become legislatures in their own right. Many of the powers in the grip of central government are devolved, eliminating the need for most SIs.
It follows that no equivalent power to create secondary legislation should exist at the grass roots level. All law here should be primary legislation and, of course, there must be public assent, with provision for formal objections and referendums.
This is not the end of it though. There is a third element where direct democracy can apply, which has not yet been discussed â the approval of treaties. To say this is a complex subject is something of an understatement, so we'll look at it in part III.
