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Delegated Legislation

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DELEGATED LEGISLATION Malaysia has capacious of subsidiary legislation which is parallel with a universal trend. Subsidiary which could also be called subordinate or delegated, is law made through powers delegated by the legislature to a body or person through a parent statute. This had been defined by sec 3 of the Interpretation Acts 1948 and 1967 (Act 388) (Consolidated and Revised 1989) which stated, such legislation as ‘any proclamation, proclamation, rule, regulation, order, notification, by-law or other instrument made under any Act, Ordinance or any other lawful authority and having legislative effect’. The Parliament and State Legislative Assemblies conferred legislative powers from the Federal Constitution. However, only small portion is directly made by these legislative bodies, while the larger portion of the legislation emanates from administrative authorities. In order to enact the legislation, the legislature confines itself to enunciating the general principles and policies relating to the subject matter in question. It also delegates some power to some other agencies, in order to legislate and fill in the details. Reasons for Delegated Legislation Basically there are several general reasons of subsidiary or delegated legislation like to economize the legislative time, lack of expertise and specialist, there is an urgent need of  response by the state and this method is said to be more flexible and elastic. The primary factors for the phenomenal popularity of delegating legislation are that modern governments are multifunctional and modern legislatures work under severe limitations. The legislature has to delegate its law-making l aw-making power for the following reasons: i) The legislature has insufficient time to enact all the legislation, detailed in every aspect, required in a modern society; ii) Much modern legislation is highly technical and is best left to experts or administrators on the job who are well versed with the technicalities involved; and iii) The legislature is not continuously in session and its legislative procedures are burdensome. Thus, delegation is necessary in situations where laws need to be made quickly, such as in emergencies, or to be amended or repealed quickly. For instance, sec 22 of the Interpretation Acts 1948 and 1967 provides that ‘subsidiary legislation may at any time be amended, varied, added to, revoked, suspended or revived by the person or authority by which it was made or, of that person or authority has been lawfully replaced by another person or authority, by that other person or authority’. INTERPRETATION OF LEGISLATIVE Dealing with this matter, the Malaysian judges applied the principles of the ‘English judges’ way of interpretation of English legislative in order to interpret the local legislation. For this, it could be said that, the literal application of English rules may lead to local variations. The different approaches used by courts in England which have been adopted by courts in Malaysia may be summarized under four particular headings: 1) The Literal Approach It is called the Literal Rule. This is the dominant approach in the past one hundred years or so. It developed in England in the early 19 th century. One of the main reasons for its adoption is said to be the length of legislation by comparison with earlier times. If legislation is drafted at length and detail, it means that the legislature has expressed its intention fully in the words used and there shall be no need to imply any additional meaning. The words in a statute must be given their literal meaning and also grammatical meaning, without regards of the outcomes. This approach and its effect were simply illustrated in Public Prosecutor v. Chin Kim Foo. The copyright in the sound recordings of two titles, which were first published in Malaysia on 14 and 18 July 1988 respectively, was infringed on 19 July 1988. The defendant alleged that copyright only subsisted from 1 January 1989, the beginning of the calendar year following the year in which the sound recordings were first published. That submission was based on sec 19 of the Copyright Act 1987 (Act 332): Copyright in a sound shall subsist until fifty years from the beginning of the calendar year next following the year in which the recording was first published. The Sessions Court accepted that submission. On a literal reading of sec 19, the court held there was no copyright until 1 January 1989. The learned judge acknowledged that such an interpretation led to an absurdity, but said the clear words of sec 19 did not allow her to reach any other decision. Her decision was upheld on appeal. 2) The Golden Rule This is a modification of the literal approach. The golden rule, called such by Lord Wensleydale, is best explained in his own words in Grey v. Pearson (1857) ….in construing wills and indeed statutes, and all written instruments, the grammatical and ordinary sense of the words is to be adhered to, unless that would lead to some absurdity, or some repugnance or inconsistency with the rest of the instrument, in which case the grammatical and ordinary sense of the words may be modified, so as to avoid the absurdity and inconsistency, but no farther.