statutory instruments

Statutory instruments – when parliament passes an Act (takes a Bill through the various stages to enact that Bill) it is often the case that that new statute is passed in skeletal form only – just the bones of the legislation with the meat being added on later

That task of adding the meat is delegated to the Minister in charge of that department and the process of adding the meat (to flesh it out!) is done by statutory instrument

the minister decides what detail to use to fill the gaps, prepares a statutory instrument and places that in the parliament library for 40 days after which time it becomes effective

40 days is there to give anyone that objects the time and opportunity to voice their objection

Rules of Court – how do you imagine that the consistency of how court proceedings should be conducted have been decided? By rules of court

Those in charge of administering the Court system decided that there are some ways better than other so the legislature got together and said “This is how we are going to operate the internal workings of the Court” and that’s when they designed the rules of court (OK, it’s a bit of a simplified version, but it’s all you’re ever going to need!)

Orders in Council (not to be confused with Orders of Council) are nominally orders from the Monarch in consultation with her / his Privy Councillors

In practical terms, a Minister in charge of the respective department and acting as a representative of the Government will read out the Orders in front of the Monarch and the Monarch responds “Approved” and then that Order becomes part of the English Law

It’s rarely used (apparently) but Wikipedia cites the example of the Order in Council whereby the Monarch ordered the blockade of French ports and the ports of those nations that were allied with France

Again, that’s beyond the limit of what you need to know

OK?