Legislation — KSLU Jurisprudence Notes

Legislation

Legislation is the making of law by a competent authority in deliberate form — for the Analytical school the only true source. Kinds: supreme (Parliament/State legislatures — subject in India only to the Constitution) and subordinate (delegated: rules, regulations, by-laws; colonial, executive, municipal, autonomous). Why it outranks precedent and custom in the exam’s comparison question: it is abrogative (can repeal), prospective and knowable in advance, made after deliberation, and exists before a dispute — whereas precedent must wait for litigation and custom for generations. The control on its delegate: delegated legislation is valid only within the parent Act and cannot supplant essential legislative functions (In re Delhi Laws Act, 1951).