conditional legislation
In conditional legislation the legislature makes the law fully: the policy, the rules and the consequences. It leaves to the executive only the decision when, where or to whom the law shall apply, for example by a notification bringing the Act into force or extending it to an area. Because nothing legislative is handed over, the excessive-delegation objection does not arise.
Delegated legislation is different: there the delegate makes rules that fill in the law's content, and the parent Act must lay down policy to guide it. The line can be thin, and the label does not decide the case; what matters is whether the authority is choosing the timing or making the law.
Example
A notification extending the Act to Dharwad district is conditional legislation: the government decides only where the law applies, not what it says.
In Indian law
- The Queen v. Burah (Privy Council, 1878): power to extend an Act to territories by notification is conditional legislation, not delegation
- In re Delhi Laws Act, 1951 INSC 36: limits of delegation and conditional legislation
See also
delegated legislation · excessive delegation · notification
Read more in the study notes
- Excessive delegation, conditional legislation and sub-delegation (Administrative Law)
- Delegated legislation: meaning, growth, merits and administrative directions (Administrative Law)
- Administrative discretion and its judicial review (Administrative Law)
- Arbitration: meaning, kinds and salient features of the 1996 Act (Alternative Dispute Resolution Systems)
- Enforcement of arbitral awards and foreign awards (Alternative Dispute Resolution Systems)
- Negotiable instruments: meaning, characteristics, promissory note, bill of exchange and cheque (Banking Law)