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In many countries, astatutory instrument is a form ofdelegated legislation.
Statutory instruments are the principal form ofdelegated or secondary legislation in theUnited Kingdom.
Statutory instruments (or 'regulations')[1] are primarily governed by theStatutory Instruments Act 1946,[2] which replaced the system ofstatutory rules and orders governed by theRules Publication Act 1893.
Following the2016 EU membership referendum and the subsequent publication of theEuropean Union (Withdrawal) Bill, there has been concern that its powers enabling ministers to issue statutory instruments under the bill may enable the government to bypass Parliament. Although this has been criticised by some as being undemocratic, draft regulations must be "laid before" Parliament, which may always demand a full debate on contentious issues.[3]
Devolved administrations also have the power to make Statutory Instruments within the heads of powers that are devolved to them.
Wales Statutory Instruments made by theWelsh Government are published as a subseries of the UK statutory instrument series—for example, the Environment (Wales) Act 2016 (Commencement No. 3) Order 2017 is numbered2017 No. 714 (W. 171), meaning it is the 714th statutory instrument in the UK series and 171st in the Wales subseries.[4]
InScotland, statutory instruments made by theScottish Government were governed by the Statutory Instruments Act 1946 following devolution until theInterpretation and Legislative Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 came into force.[5][6][7] Unlike Wales Statutory Instruments, Scottish Statutory Instruments are not published as a subseries of the UK series—instead, they are published separately by theQueen's Printer for Scotland. However, any UK statutory instruments dealing withreserved matters and applying only to Scotland are published in a UK subseries, such as the Insolvent Companies (Reports on Conduct of Directors) (Scotland) Rules 2016 numbered2016 No. 185 (S. 1).[8]: 12 [9]
InNorthern Ireland, delegated legislation is organised intostatutory rules, rather than statutory instruments.
InIreland the term "statutory instrument" is given a much broader meaning than under the UK legislation. Under theStatutory Instruments Act 1947 a statutory instrument is defined as being "an order, regulation, rule, scheme or bye-law made in exercise of a power conferred by statute".
However, only certain statutory instrument are published and numbered by theStationery Office, this being mostly where the statute enabling the enactment of delegated legislation required that any such legislation be laid before the Houses of theOireachtas.
Two close equivalents of similar operation are
Similarly to the United Kingdom, national and state/provincial governments inAustralia andCanada also call their delegated legislation statutory instruments.
Canada uses statutory instruments forproclamations by the King of Canada. For example, the Proclamation of the Queen of Canada on April 17, 1982brought into force theConstitution Act 1982, the UK parts of which are known as theCanada Act 1982.