Need of Legal Research for Making Laws

The following three reasons necessitate the legal research for the purpose of making laws

1. Legal research is crucial to the learning and practice of law: law is associated with social facts and it is impossible to learn about laws without its relation with facts
2. The law is changing constantly: law functions to serve the purpose, so that it has to change with the pace of the society.
3. You need to ensure your information is current: law is applicable in practical life, and the law which is based on the true information of the realities, its’ making is dependent on current information concerning requirement

How Act is Made

• The last century has seen an enormous growth in legislative law making. Proposals for changes to the law can come from a number of sources including:
• Pressure groups
• Governments who want to implement their own policies
• Changing community needs
• Recommendations from Law Reform Committees and Royal Commissions of Inquiry
• Irrespective of the reason behind the legislative changes the process for making laws follows a predictable path.
• Act of Parliament begins its life as a bill. Most bills are introduced into the Parliament by the proposing Minister and have to pass through prescribed readings in each House of Parliament.
• If both Houses pass the bill it receives Royal Assent and its provisions become law. Fortunately for a researcher, a bill’s progress through both houses of Parliament is recorded in the Parliamentary Debates.
• For the legal researcher, the most important and interesting stage of a bill is the second reading. At this stage, the Minister responsible for the bill explains its purpose and the general principles of the bill are debated.