Abstract
This paper assesses the manner in which laws are made/enforced in the UK and Germany, including the identification of similarities and differences. It includes a discussion about the nature of laws in both countries, coupled by a detailed discussion of the law-making processes. The paper holds that Germany’s system encourages collaboration among different agencies, while the federal system allows the individual law enforcement forces to be more robust and efficient. On the other hand, the UK system’s strength lies in the long-established common law system as well as centuries’ old administrative systems (including the crown), which make law-making and enforcement fail-safe.
Introduction
Law refers to the system of guidelines and rules, which are enforced through multiple institutions with the purpose of regulating behavior. The bodies of laws in multiple countries including Germany and the United Kingdom include common law, legislation as well as parliamentary norms and judicial precedents. Until recently, UK laws remained unwritten. Instead, it comprised of centuries of court precedents, legal and cultural practices, royal decrees that went as far back as the Magna Carta (Von Bogdandy & Venzke, 2012). Germany’s legal system is drawn from the Federal Law of the Germany Republic, with the vast majority of the laws were formed after World War II. The laws comprise of public law that regulates citizen-state relationships and the Privatrecht, which seeks to regulate the relationships between private citizens and organizations. Bavarian, Napoleonic and Roman laws as well as legal practices including the Corpus Juris Civilis culturally influence multiple aspects of Germany’s laws, from the formation to the enforcement (Hunter-Schulz, 2005). This paper argues that the UK’s law-making and enforcement is relatively inefficient because of the independence of the individual bodies and the adversarial approach adopted by individual bodies, but largely succeeds because of the entrenched common law legal and administrative systems.
Germany’s body of laws comprises of codes, statutes and regulations derived from multiple legislations as well as court precedents. The country’s lower and upper houses of Parliament are responsible for making the country’s laws. The lower house or the Bundestag has rights under Articles 48 and 38 of the constitution to make federal laws. The 601-member body is the most important legislative body, entitled to introduce; debate and pass new bills according to the predetermined process (Deutscher Bundestag, 2012). The individual members (supported by or the federal government departments first draft the bills before introducing them on the floor of the house. The bill is distributed to the members of the Bundestag, the Bundesrat and the federal ministers. The debate on the bill commences during the first reading, followed by the formation of committees to prepare the bill for the second reading.
The committees republished the bill to the rest of the Parliamentarians, who subsequently discuss the bill and collaboratively revised from the motions of amendments that the Bundestag’s members of the table (Zander, 2004). With the support of two thirds of the house, the bill moves on to the third reading, where motions brought by 5% of the house or committees may amend the bill before a vote is held. If successful, the bill is passed on to the Bundesrat as an Act. The Bundesrat does not change the proposed law, but helps in shape it through the mediation committee that comprises of equal members from the lower and upper houses. A successful vote in the Bundesrat makes the proposed legislation law. Objections in the house are resolved through mediation committees, followed by a vote (Deutscher Bundestag, 2012).
The bill may be initiated in either of the two houses of parliament, but once it is successfully passed by one house, it goes on to the second house for a similarly rigorous debate and vote. The government or individual members of parliament draft a bill and introduce it to the floor of the house during the first reading, during which no debates take place. No debate/vote takes place (UK Parliament , 2012). Debating occurs on the Second reading, before a vote is taken and passed on to the Committee stage, where the proposed law is amended to included recommendations from the house floor, before it goes back to the floor for the reporting stage. During this stage, the house debates the bill further and puts forward recommendations to be included in the bill. During the third reading, further deliberations take place and a vote is taken without any further amendments, and the bill passes on to the House of Lords for the first reading, second reading, committee stage, report and third reading (Pauwelyn, Wessel, & Wouters, 2012). If changes are passed in the House of Lords, then they must be considered by both chambers and passed before going on for the royal assent.
In the United Kingdom, the law-making process is similar to the Germany system. However, while in Germany, the members of the Bundestag work collaboratively, the UK system is largely adversarial. The government and individual members of the house that sponsor a bill bear the responsibility of drafting and arguing the merits of the bill, up until the third reading stage (Von Bogdandy & Venzke, 2012). In addition, as against the Germany law-making process where the Bundesrat acts as a supervising body, the House of Lords plays a full legislative body to complement the lower house. Both houses acts to check and balance each other. However, the bicameral constitution of the legislative body is similar in both countries, coupled by the origination of legislation.
Enforcement
In both the UK and Germany, the executive and the judiciary are charged with the enforcement of the laws, once they are passed. In Germany, only the individual states have the constitutional powers to enforce the law since 1871. At the federal level, the Bundespolizei, which under the Federal interior ministry, is a uniformed police force, charged with border control, major disturbances and other law enforcement problems that transcend the jurisdiction or capacity of individual states (Prenzler, 2009). Other federal police agencies include the Bundeskriminalamt, which has in excess of 3000 agents and is charged with criminal intelligence gathering and dissemination. The bulk of Germany’s police and uniformed forces are managed at the individual state level. States have a police force (the Landespolizei), regulated by upwards if sixteen legislatures. The different police forces are organized by communities, towns and cities, but tend to standardize their activities (Canterbury, 2011).
Germany has a civil-based legal system, founded on statutory law as against the UK’s common law system. The judiciary is organized into (i) ordinary courts that handle civil cases; (ii) administrative law courts; tax courts; (iii) labor courts; (iv) social courts and (v) constitutional law courts. Every court type has a federal level court, which handles constitutional questions. Independent judges and prosecutors run the judiciary (Hunter-Schulz, 2005). The hierarchy of the judiciary is not dependent on the legal issues, but courts have jurisdictions on the questions of law that they are competent to handle. In common with the UK however, Germany has special courts and tribunals, charged with arbitration and other specialized legal matters.
The UK has a common law-based legal system. Law enforcement powers are devolved to an individual citizen’s level, with citizens having the limited powers to arrest offenders. The police fall into (i) the territorial forces under an independent authority, including the Metropolitan Police and the Scotland Yard; (ii) special forces that carry out special, non-jurisdictional enforcement e.g. the British Transport Police; (iii) non-police enforcement agencies and (iv) miscellaneous units (Canterbury, 2011). While there are separate legal systems in Scotland, England and Wales as well as Northern Ireland, there are considerable similarities. As against Germany’s federal system, the UK’s judiciary has a single hierarchy with the Court of Appeal being the highest court (England and Wales). The high court has the final appellate jurisdiction in some legal matters. In addition to the judges, magistrates and prosecutors, the criminal investigation departments, which are embedded at different levels of the police force, play a critical role in facilitating judicial proceedings (Von Bogdandy & Venzke, 2012).
Conclusion
It is clear that making laws is easier and more efficient in Germany than the UK. While the Bundestag works together in passing new legislations, the UK encourages an adversarial approach both in the initiating arm of parliament, but also between the Commons and the House of Lords (Canterbury, 2011). In addition, while the Germany system organizes law enforcement according to federal territories, the UK has multiple police forces with overlapping functions (e.g. the London Metropolitan Police) and the special police forces.
References List
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