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Regulation-Making in the United Kingdom and Australia: Democratic Legitimacy, Safeguards and Executive Aggrandisement

Regulation-Making in the United Kingdom and Australia: Democratic Legitimacy, Safeguards and Executive Aggrandisement

Author: Andrew Edgar
Publisher: Hart Publishing
ISBN: 9781509972289

Published In: July 2025
Format: Paperback
Jurisdiction: U.K. ? Disclaimer:
Countri(es) stated herein are used as reference only
Hardback Edition ISBN: 9781509972241

List Price: RMB 514.69

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Description
Contents

Details

This book shines a spotlight on the way in which parliamentary scrutiny of regulations provides the primary support for democratic legitimacy for regulations in the UK and Australia.

This democratic safeguard is supplemented by public consultation processes. Despite commonly expressed concerns that regulation-making is secretive and undemocratic, it can be recognised to be a democratically sound and important feature of modern law. There are, however, modern practices that remove or limit these safeguards on regulation-making, raising concerns about executive aggrandisement.

This book has two aims. The first is to explain the systems of parliamentary scrutiny in the UK and Australia and their historical development. The development of parliamentary checks on regulation-making through the 20th century established the primary basis for the democratic legitimacy of regulations.

The second aim is to examine recent developments in regulation-making that avoid or minimise this safeguard. Constitutional changes in the UK, transnational regulation, and emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic, have affected regulation-making in a manner that avoids or minimises the parliamentary checks that were carefully developed and implemented in the 20th century.

The book contributes to public law in the UK and Australia by analysing recent developments that involve executive over-reach, by reference to the historical development of parliamentary checks on regulation-making.

1. Introduction

Part One: Delegation of Regulation-Making Authority and the Development of Safeguards

2. Delegating Regulation-Making Authority

3. Parliamentary Scrutiny of Regulations

4. Administration – Consultation, Advisory Committees, and Regulatory Impact Assessments

5. Judicial Review of Regulations

Part Two: Circumventing and Minimising the Safeguards

6. Excluding Parliamentary Scrutiny

7. Incorporation by Reference of Guidance and Private Standards

8. Henry VIII Clauses

9. Emergency Regulations

10. Executive Aggrandizement, Parliamentary Democracy and Bicameralism