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Make Laws not Legislators

David Green, 30 September 2004

The majority of new laws are initiated by the European Union. Many are not even rubber-stamped by Parliament. When John Locke wrote his Second Treatise of Government in the 1680s to defend the emerging democratisation of this country, he laid down the four main characteristics of a free society. The fourth was that the legislature “cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands: for it being but a delegated power from the people, they who have it cannot pass it over to others.”
The people, he said, had given Parliament the power “only to make laws, and not to make legislators”. The government had no power to transfer their authority to make laws and place it in other hands. (From John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 1689, s. 141.)
Perhaps a few of our Parliamentarians should read Locke before they give away any more of our freedom to govern ourselves.

1 comment on “Make Laws not Legislators”

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