Assignment 1: Parliament vs the Judiciary – Who should have
greater legal power?
Unit 23 – The English Legal System
Attempted Level: Distinction
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,Introduction
Throughout my assignment, I will be discussing the legal powers that both Parliament and
the Judiciary have and conclude on who should have greater say. I will cover the history of
both of these legal powers, take an in-depth look at a case study between the two powers,
and then conclude based upon my findings.
Part 1 – Identifying who Parliament and the Judiciary are and how they came to be.
Who are Parliament?
Parliament is a group of people who can decide what policies a country should follow; it can
pass or change laws1 and it possesses legislative supremacy over other political bodies in the
UK and any overseas territories within UK jurisdiction. Parliament operates under what is
known as a bicameral or ‘two-House system’ where business of Parliament takes place in
two Houses: The House of Commons and The House of Lords. The House of Commons is
‘publicly elected’ which means that the Members of Parliament (MPs for short) are chosen
by the public, and their role is to represent their political party. If a party has a majority by
at least holding 326 seats2, then their party forms the government. The House of Lords is the
second chamber of Parliament, and it is independent from the House of Commons and their
members are elected differently since they are suggested by the public or party, and once
the individual has been approved by the current prime minister, any other appointments
needed to be made are finalised by the reigning monarch3.
How did they come to be?
The UK Parliament’s history is long and complicated and has seen huge fundamental
changes over its’ lifetime. Starting off, the first signs of Parliament were seen ever since the
signing of the royal charter of rights known as ‘Magna Carta’ which was signed by King John
which established the rights of barons and gave them the authority to serve as consultants
to the king on governmental matters4. The father of Parliament is considered by many to be
Simon De Montfort and despite this dubious title being given to him, given that our current
Parliament does not resemble what he created, the system he did create at the time was
revolutionary5. Over the next century, Parliament’s power would begin to grow, and it
started to adopt systems that we still use today, and the idea of ‘democracy’ was starting to
form. In the 1500’s we began to see the idea of ‘freedom’ in areas such as speech or religion
was beginning to flourish but the monarch still held control over these very sensitive
subjects and Queen Elizabeth imprisoned individuals such as Peter Wentworth to the Tower
or London for arguing for the same right and freedom of religion.
One of the huge changes of Parliament formed after the English Civil War within the 17 th
century between Parliament and the Monarchy6. After Parliament’s victory over Charles l,
1
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/parliament
2
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/government-majority
3
https://www.parliament.uk/business/lords/whos-in-the-house-of-lords/members-and-their-roles/how-members-are-appointed/
4
https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/originsofparliament/birthofparliament/
5
https://www.battleofevesham.co.uk/The_Battle/Simon_de_Montfort.html
6
https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/parliamentaryauthority/civilwar/
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, they executed the monarch and declared England to be a commonwealth. Later on, with
thanks to Oliver Cromwell, both Scotland (1649) and Ireland (1651) would be conquered and
brought under the rule of the ‘United Kingdom’. Although there were some extra conflicts
with monarchs during the rest of the 17th Century, we could begin to see that Parliament
power began to develop and evolve throughout the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries7. Scotland
and Ireland started sending representatives to Parliament, the House of Commons and
Lords was developed until it has become what it is today 8.
What role do they have in the English Legal System?
Parliament has a wide variety of roles within the English Legal System, but their main
functions can be broken down into four categories9:
Challenging and checking the work of the Government
Debating important daily issues
Analysing and approving any Government spending
Making and changing laws
Challenging and checking the work of the Government, also known as scrutiny, is a way to
ensure that the current government is enforcing legal and ethical measures which is done in
both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Certain procedures to check and
challenge is through methods such as debating, investigating committees, questioning
ministers, or even having the government publicly explain and justify their decisions and
policies10. The reason why Parliament must challenge and check the government is because
they do not want corruption or unfair policies to be introduced that could be harmful to the
UK’s people, foreign affairs, or economy.
In both the House of Commons and Lords, debates can be held in which members will
discuss a wide variety of different subjects ranging from new proposed laws, topical daily
issues, or current government policies. The reason why Parliament has debates is because it
allows MPs to voice their interests or any concerns of their constituents and lords to discuss
any issues that the public have brought to their attention. The end goal of the debates is to
reach an informed decision on a subject and then act upon it by holding something known
as a division (vote) for or against the discussed topic11.
The UK Government has a nominal GDP ranking of 5th in the world at $2.64 trillion12, and had
an annual spending of £928bn within 202013 and 3851.3bn in 201914. It is the role of
Parliament to analyse this spending very closely either by looking at the current tax rate,
7
http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/periods/modern
8
https://www.history.com/topics/british-history/british-parliament
9
https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/role/
10
https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/role/scrutiny/
11
https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/role/debate/
12
https://globalpeoservices.com/top-15-countries-by-gdp-in-2020/
13
https://www.statista.com/statistics/298524/government-spending-in-the-uk/#:~:text=In%202020%2C%20the%20expenditure%20of,pensions
%20and%20other%20welfare%20benefits
14
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/public-spending-statistics-release-february-2020/public-spending-statistics-february-
2020#:~:text=Total%20expenditure%20(%C2%A3billions),-Change%20to%20table&text=TME%20was%20%C2%A3851.3%20billion,3.0%25%20on
%20the%20previous%20year
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