Nature and Forms of Legislation and discussed in this article. You will find this informative and helpful for your research.
What is Legislation
Primary Form of Legislation
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Nature of Legislation
Legislation can be defined as all the methods and procedures involved in making law. The process of making law in any form or fashion is what is called legislation.
To get a clearer understanding by defining it narrowly, we would say that legislation is that source of law that consists of the declaration of legal rules by a competent authority.
Therefore, it is such an enunciation or promulgation of principles as they are transferred upon them the force of the law and it is such a declaration of principles as constitutes a legal ground for their recognition as law for the future by the tribunals of the State.
Talking about legislation, it is the feature of a legal system that has fully been developed and develops law by endorsing new laws, repealing or altering old laws; in its essence, it means a law that is made deliberately in statutory form by some competent authority invested with that definite function as representative of the state.
Any law that has its source in legislation is best termed as an endorsed or enacted law although the term that is often common is called the statute law.
Intrinsic in the nature of the legislation is the fact that the words in which it is expressed – the ‘litera scripta’ – make up a part of the law in itself. The spirit of the law cannot be separated from the written expression of the spirit.
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Forms of Legislation
Legislation can be classified into two; subordinate or supreme.
1. Subordinate Legislation
This is that which comes from any authority that is different from the supreme power and as a result of this, it is dependent on the continued existence and validity of some superior or supreme leader.
Such subordinate legislative power must be exercised within the limits and forms that are prescribed by the supreme legislative body.
Consequently, in Nigerian Parliament, through the complexity of modern life and the pressures on Parliamentary time, has found it deems fit to appoint legislative powers to Ministers, Government departments, and other offices at their discretion.
Such delegated legislation hence must remain within the four corners of the power that has been vested by the parliament and at any time, may be called upon for questioning on the grounds that it has exceeded the limits that were set for it by acting outside the boundary of its power.
2. Supreme Legislation
This is a kind of legislation that comes from the supreme or sovereign power in the state or country and because of the supremacy; it cannot in any way be rejected, repealed, or even controlled by any other legislative authority within the state country.
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For instance, in England, the supreme authority in terms of legislation comes from and is rested upon the Parliament and it finds its expression in the Acts of Parliament.
In conclusion, these kinds of Acts cannot be questioned because they obtain their authority by the singular fact that they have been enacted in line with the Procedure that has been specified by the State and recognized by the courts for that purpose.
