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In Wales, an 'Assembly Measure' is Primary legislation that is a category lower than an Act of Parliament. In the case of Contemporary Welsh Law, the difference with acts is that each Measure is accompanied with an 'LCO' or legislative Competency order, which transfers powers to an Assembly. Each transfer in Contemporary Welsh Law is known as a matter, which is added to the Government of Wales Act 2006.
It is a lower form of Primary legislation as it does not contain a large bulk of powers compared to the power to make acts. In Wales each Assembly Measure will be accompanied with a Matter which was transferred using the Legislative Competency order system. Each Assembly Measure, like an Act of Parliament, would make provision for a matter within the remit of the legislative competency of the Assembly.
The Scotland Act 1978 was to create a Scottish Assembly with similar power, where the Scottish Assembly would be able to add to Scots law using a "Measures of the Scottish Assembly" system, see Scotland Act 1978. This form of legislation does not receive royal assent like Acts of Parliament do, it gets signed via an Order in Council, which the monarch signs and appends to the Assembly Measure once passed.

Contents

Confusion

Other uses of Assembly Measures

How an Assembly Measure is passed

Approval of Assembly Measures

Who can propose Assembly Measures

See Also

External Links

Confusion

When the Government of Wales Act 2006 was passed, people reading got confused as to what a Measure is and what an Order-in-Council is and some people thought it was just a way of conferring power to the Assembly for them to make more 'delegated legislation'. Meanwhile, the act states that the Orders in Council used are only to transfer legal power to the Assembly and the Assembly, without having to go to Parliament, could the legislate using the 'Assembly Measures' system instead of making Acts straight off. An Assembly Measure could then confer power to the Welsh ministers to make delegated legislation, or statutory instruments as guided within the Measure.

Other uses of Assembly Measures

Assembly Measures can be made to make certain actions illegal. According to the Government of Wales Act 2006, Assembly Measures can make something illegal with a maximum penalty of two years imprisonment. [1]

How an Assembly Measure is passed

Like Acts, Assembly Measures face the same style of scrutiny. There are around four stages as where the proposed legislation is scrutinised[2]. The first stage is the agreement of the principles of the Assembly Measure, which means the first approval of the legislation for it to be scrutinised, then it will have to be scrutinized at committee level, where a committee of Assembly Members can debate and add more to the Measure which is then accompanied with debates in 'plenary', which would be required to approve the ammendments.
Once everything above has been completed, the Assembly can then start the final scrutinising before the Assembly Measure get's passed and becomes law. Of course, like in other legisative systems, some laws will fail, or might end up withdrawn. [3].

Approval of Assembly Measures

Assembly Measures like all other types of legislation will have to be approved by a head of state, that head of state would be the Queen of the United Kingdom. After the Assembly Measure is passed by the National Assembly for Wales the Measure will have to be taken to the Queen in Council who approves the Measure via an Order In Council. The approval would later be added to the Assembly Measure as proof of the approval. The approving order in council is not approved by both Houses of Parliament like the Orders in Council conferring power to the Assembly.

Who can propose Assembly Measures

Like in any legislature, the National Assembly for Wales members can propose Assembly Measures. The name for an Assembly Measure passed by a person not in the Welsh Assembly Government will be called a "Members Proposed Assembly Measure" [[4]] meanwhile according to the same source there will also be "Government Proposed Assembly Measures" and "Emergency Proposed Assembly Measures". The First Welsh Legislative Counsel, a new post commencing in April 2007, working within the Office of the First Welsh Legislative Counsel, part of the Legal Services Department of the Welsh Assembly Government will have responsibility for the drafting of the Welsh Assembly Government's legislative programme following the implementation of the Government of Wales Act 2006. Professor Thomas Glyn Watkin is the first person to be appointed to this post.

See Also

★ Government of Wales Act 2006

★ Scotland Act 1978

★ Proposed NHS Redress (Wales) Measure 2007 an Example.

★ Contemporary Welsh Law

★ Legislative Competency Order

★ List of Measures of the National Assembly for Wales

★ Acts of Parliament

External Links

★ [5]Schedule 5 of the Government of Wales Act 2006, which is where each Measure get's it's provision from.