This chapter examines the sources of domestic law. There are two sources of law (primary sources and secondary sources). Primary sources are considered to be those ‘authoritative’ sources that are produced by the legal process itself. Secondary sources are sources that are produced by others and are, in essence, a commentary on the law. Primary sources of law include statutory material and this itself is divided into two types of material: primary legislation (Acts of Parliament) and secondary legislation (Statutory Instruments, Orders in Council, etc). Statutes are Acts of Parliament and are either Public Acts (Acts that are of general application) or Private Acts (which are limited to a certain body). An Act will normally have to pass both the House of Commons and House of Lords and then receive Royal Assent before it becomes an Act of Parliament.
Chapter
This chapter examines the sources of domestic law. There are two sources of law (primary sources and secondary sources). Primary sources are considered to be those ‘authoritative’ sources that are produced by the legal process itself. Secondary sources are sources that are produced by others and are, in essence, a commentary on the law. Primary sources of law include statutory material and this itself is divided into two types of material: primary legislation (Acts of Parliament) and secondary legislation (Statutory Instruments, Orders in Council, etc). Statutes are Acts of Parliament and are either Public Acts (Acts that are of general application) or Private Acts (which are limited to a certain body). An Act will normally have to pass both the House of Commons and House of Lords and then receive Royal Assent before it becomes an Act of Parliament.
Chapter
18. Public interest immunity and privilege I
Public interest immunity
This chapter first discusses the different rules governing public interest immunity and privilege, focusing on the waiver of the right to withhold and the use of secondary evidence if the original is immune from production and inadvertent disclosure. It then turns to public interest in both civil and criminal cases, covering applications to withhold material subject to public interest immunity; ‘affairs of state’ cases; whether the court can question the claim to withhold and by what criteria the claim to withhold should be judged; closed material procedures; the use of methods such as redaction to minimise the effect of a refusal to disclose documents; information given for the detection of crime, etc.; and confidentiality.
Chapter
This chapter focuses on waste regulation and how the notion of ‘waste’, which can give rise to serious environmental and health problems, is a legally constructed one. Unlike other pollution control regimes, waste regulation is focused on an identified pollution source, which is defined and characterized in legal terms. The chapter shows how difficult it can be to make the legal distinction between waste and non-waste. In regulating waste, there is a fundamental tension between minimizing the polluting impacts of waste (making waste a firm focus for regulation), and encouraging secondary markets that promote discarded material as a resource rather than a potential pollution problem (where ‘waste’ can be a poor characterization of material). Legal disputes over the definition of waste and how waste should be regulated are grappling with this policy tension in an increasingly circular economy for natural resources.
