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Chapter 15 - Delegated
legislation and disallowance
The power to enact laws is a primary power of Parliament. Parliament, however, frequently
enacts legislation containing provisions which empower the executive
government, or specified bodies or office-holders, or the judiciary, to make
regulations or other forms of instruments which, provided that they are
properly made, have the effect of law. This form of law is referred to as “delegated
legislation”, “subordinate legislation” or “legislative instruments”. The last is the
statutorily-established term. This is law made by the executive government, by
ministers and other executive office-holders, without parliamentary enactment.
This situation has the appearance of a considerable violation of the principle
of the separation of
powers, the principle that laws should be made by the elected representatives
of the people in Parliament and not by the executive government. The principle
has been largely preserved, however, by a system for the parliamentary control
of executive law-making. This system, which has been built up over many years,
principally by the efforts of the Senate, is founded on the ability of either
House of the Parliament to disallow, that is, to veto, such laws made by
executive office-holders.
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