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The challenge that delegated legislation poses to parliamentary sovereignty and associated supremacy in the UK is purportedly addressed through what we term the 'constitutional bargain of delegated law-making'. This has three elements: the proper limitation of delegation by Parliament through well-designed parent legislation; the exercise of self-restraint by the Executive in the use of delegated authority; and the enablement of meaningful scrutiny by Parliament. As a paradigm situation in which delegated law-making might be said to be necessary, the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic is an apposite context in which to assess the robustness of that bargain. Our analysis uses a sample of Westminster-generated pandemic-related secondary instruments as a peephole into the broader dynamics of this constitutional bargain and further reveals its significant frailties; frailties that are exposed, but not created, by the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have seen an increase in the use of delegated legislation to implement major policy decisions in the UK. This has exacerbated the longstanding criticism that Westminster lacks sufficiently robust procedures for parliamentary scrutiny of delegated legislation. However, the UK is not the only country to use delegated legislation, or to face the challenge of ensuring it receives adequate parliamentary scrutiny. This article therefore places the UK system in wider context by comparing it to six other national parliaments. We highlight one comparative strength of the UK system, two weaknesses it shares with the other six cases, and one way in which the UK might learn lessons from elsewhere. Overall, our evidence suggests that no one country offers a clear template for more rigorous parliamentary scrutiny of delegated legislation. Successful reform of the UK's system is likely to require creative procedural innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The usage of delegated legislation as a means of governance deserves significant attention, in view of the enormous impact that it is capable of having on the lives of citizens. While reforms to the process of parliamentary scrutiny are an important means of minimising the inappropriate usage of delegated legislation, this paper explores the possibility of drawing more fruitfully upon judicial review as an additional control mechanism. It undertakes a theoretical analysis of what makes delegated legislation distinct from primary legislation and other types of executive action for the purposes of judicial review, with a view towards identifying the proper normative orientation of judicial review of delegated legislation – upholding the moral requirements of delegation relationships and safeguarding democratic accountability and the rule of law. It then argues that existing grounds of review applied towards delegated legislation go some way towards but are inadequately directed at this normative orientation. Drawing inspiration from Irish and US jurisprudence, the paper critically evaluates several possible means of filling this doctrinal space, and concludes that the non-delegation doctrine and a rule of law-based ground of judicial review directed at exercises of delegated law-making power can supplement the law of judicial review of delegated legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia’s combustible cladding crisis is estimated to cost approximately $6 billion to remediate. No study has been published which determined the causative factors for the magnitude of this issue. Investigators for the Federal Building Ministers’ Forum stated that building practitioners misinterpreted or ignored the requirements of the National Construction Code. However, research by the authors showed that the cause of Australia’s combustible cladding crisis are likely deficiencies in the National Construction Code itself. A comparative analysis of historic National Construction Code requirements and recent National Construction Code changes in response to cladding fires showed that the factors which contributed to Australia’s combustible cladding crisis were present for nearly 20 years. Findings also showed that some of the newly introduced measures incorporated in the National Construction Code to address the combustible cladding crisis do not fully address combustible cladding risks and fail to completely address the historical deficiencies.

The article in the magazine "Environmental Legal News" presents the ruling of the Supreme Court on October 2, 2024, in which it rules on an administrative litigation related to hydrological plans in the Guadalquivir demarcation. The appeal focuses on the transfer from the El Portillo dam to the municipality of Baza and the overexploitation of the aquifers in the Sierra de Baza. The Court concludes that the works are in accordance with the legal system and dismisses the appeal filed. [Extracted from the article]

The COVID-19 pandemic is testing parliamentary systems of governance across the world, especially in relation to oversight of executive actions. Observers in multiple jurisdictions have already noted the proliferation of delegated legislation during the pandemic and the shortcomings in legislative oversight of the same. To date, however, no close analysis has been conducted of the way in which legislative oversight mechanisms have broken down during the pandemic. This paper provides such an analysis, using examples from Westminster systems adopting the 'legislative model' of providing extraordinary powers. Looking at individual examples from Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, the analysis seeks to identify and explain the failures, and relative successes, in different mechanisms for parliamentary oversight, including parliamentary scrutiny committees (pre-existing and ad-hoc), disallowance, and sunset clauses. Although primarily descriptive, the comparative approach analysis permits preliminary conclusions to be drawn as to the way each jurisdiction may improve its methods of parliamentary oversight of delegated legislation. These comparative lessons will be of use both during and beyond the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Delegated legislation involves Parliament lending its legislative powers to the executive branch of government, such as to the cabinet or an individual minister. As the ultimate source of legislative power, Parliament has a special responsibility to keep an eye on executive lawmaking. The Australian federal scrutiny committee – formerly called the Senate Standing Committee on Regulations and Ordinances, and now rebadged as the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation – recently carried out an inquiry to consider how it could improve its scrutiny process. In 2019 it published a unanimous report that was endorsed by the Australian Senate in November when it amended its Standing Orders in line with the committee’s proposed changes. This article provides an overview of the Australian scrutiny committee and its inquiry. It then considers the committee’s report and recommendations, which present an opportunity to consider changes to the parliamentary scrutiny of delegated legislation in other jurisdictions such as Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the South Tyrolean Option of 1939 and the motives of the German-speaking population in the decision "to leave or to stay". It discusses the instrumentalization and different uses of the term. The article also provides an overview of the historical events from 1918 to 1938, the division of Tyrol and the annexation of South Tyrol by Italy. Under the fascist regime, the South Tyroleans were confronted with repression. The Italianization of South Tyrol took place in two phases: first, the political and cultural assimilation through decrees and laws, followed by the majorization, the expansion of industry, and the state-sponsored immigration of Italians. The Option of 1939 allowed the South Tyroleans to choose between German and Italian citizenship and led to their resettlement in the German Reich. [Extracted from the article]

Lawmakers and scholars concerned with content moderation regulation typically appeal to "analogies" to justify or undermine different forms of regulation. The logic goes: law should afford individuals due process rights against speech platforms because speech platforms are "like" speech governors as a matter of objective reality. Other common analogies include common carriers, publishers, distributors, shopping malls, and bookstores. Commentators attempt to invoke social roles to understand what the content moderation relationship is, what behaviors are "right" and "wrong" within it, and how law should police behavioral deviations. But they do so without relying on foundational sociology theory that explains what social roles are, what they do, and how they come to be. Without this theoretical foundation, the discourse incompletely portrays the project of content moderation regulation. Content moderation regulations do not simply "take" speech platforms' role as it currently exists----they will also "make" speech platforms' role by expressing that speech platforms should be speech governors, common carriers, publishers, or something else, based on how lawmakers choose to regulate. This Article is the first to introduce role theory into the content moderation discourse. Content moderation regulations are poised to define the basic contours of what it means to be a "speech platform" because the role remains unsettled. Earlier, the Communications Decency Act failed to articulate coherent roles within the content moderation relationship. But current content moderation regulatory reforms--including the PACT Act in Congress as well as state platform-common carriage laws and their judicial review--have a renewed opportunity to script social roles for speech platforms and individuals. Foregrounding these reforms' role scripts directs attention to urgent questions about whether they are likely to produce a desirable content moderation relationship and an online speech ecosystem that meets the public's needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite empirical evidence documenting its harms and substantial legislative efforts to ban its practice, conversion therapy remains a tragically prevalent practice in the United States. Recently, a circuit split between the Ninth and Eleventh Circuits has developed, raising questions about the future of conversion therapy regulation. This Note takes a retrospective look at the last ten years of conversion therapy bans and related legal challenges, questions the effectiveness of enacted bans, and explores routes for more effective regulation. This Note ultimately argues that conversion therapy bans must shift their focus to the regulation of unlicensed practitioners in order to better protect minors from the empirically demonstrated harms of conversion therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All armed groups have internal regulations, and these regulations frequently involve the governance of affect, intimacy, and reproduction. Drawing upon [End Page 411] my ethnographic research with female former combatants from Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), I explore the gendered aspects of these governance regimes. How was intimacy dictated and policed by commanders and peers? What are the tropes regarding women and violence, and how are these frequently eroticized? What forms of reproductive governance were exercised within the ranks? For women who chose to leave the FARC, either informally or via official Demobilization, Disarmament, and Reintegration programs, to what extent does reintegration involve the redomestication of "transgressive" women? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]