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An 'enabling act' is a piece of legislation by which a legislature grants an entity which depends on it for authorization or legitimacy to take a certain action(s). It is important not to confuse enabling acts from different times & places, since their effect varies widely.

Contents

In Germany

Hitler's Enabling Act

In Venezuela

In the United Kingdom

In the United States

References

In Germany

The Enabling Act was a special power allowed by the Weimar Constitution to give the Chancellor the power to pass laws by decree without the involvement of the ''Reichstag''. These special powers would remain in effect for four years, after which time they were eligible to be renewed. Under the existing Weimar constitution, under Article 48, the President could rule by decree in times of emergency. The unprecedented element of the Enabling Act was that the Chancellor himself possessed these powers. The Enabling Act was only supposed to be used in times of extreme emergency, and in fact had only been used once before Hitler, in 1923-24 when the government used the Enabling Act to rescue Germany from hyperinflation. To activate the Enabling Act a party required a vote by a two-thirds majority in the Reichstag.

Hitler's Enabling Act

An Enabling Act ('' in German) was passed by Germany's parliament (the ''Reichstag'') on March 23, 1933. It was the second major step after the Reichstag Fire Decree through which the Nazis obtained dictatorial powers using largely legal means. The Act enabled Chancellor Adolf Hitler and his cabinet to enact laws without the participation of the ''Reichstag''. The formal name of the Enabling Act was ''Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich'' ("Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the State").

In Venezuela

In Venezuela, enabling laws allowing the President to rule by decree in selected matters have been granted to Carlos Andrés Pérez (1974),^[1] Jaime Lusinchi (1984)^[2] and Ramón José Velásquez (1993)^[3].
In mid 2000 a similar law enabled Hugo Chávez to legislate on issues related to the economy, reorganization of government ministries, and crime for one year. Chávez did not take advantage of this act until shortly before its expiration, when he passed 49 decrees in rapid succession, many of them highly controversial. [1] [2] [3]
In 2007, a new enabling act was requested by President Chávez which, if granted, would give the president the ability to rule by decree over certain economic, social, territorial, defense, and scientific matters as well as control over transportation, regulations for popular participation, and rules for governing state institutions. [4]

In the United Kingdom

In the 1930s, both Sir Stafford Cripps and Clement Attlee advocated an enabling act to allow a future Labour government to pass socialist legislation which would not be amended by normal parliamentary procedures and the House of Lords. According to Cripps, his "Planning and Enabling Act" would not be able to be repealed, and the orders made by the government using the act would not be allowed discussion in Parliament. [5] Cripps also suggested measures against the monarchy, but quickly dropped the idea. [6]
In 1966, Oswald Mosley advocated a government of national unity drawn from "the professions, from science, from the unions and the managers, from businessmen, the housewives, from the services, from the universities, and even from the best of the politicians". This coalition would be a "hard centre" oriented one which would also get Parliament to pass an Enabling Act in order to stop "time-wasting obstructionism of present procedure", as Mosley described it. He also claimed that Parliament would always retain the power to dismiss his government by vote of censure if its policies failed or if it attempted to "override basic British freedoms". [7]
In early 2006, the highly controversial yet little-publicised Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill was introduced to Parliament. This Bill, if enacted into law, would have enabled Government ministers to amend or repeal any legislation (including the L&RR Bill itself), subject to vague and highly subjective restraints, by decree and without recourse to Parliament. The Bill was variously been described as the ''"Abolition of Parliament Bill"'' (The Times) and ''"...of first-class constitutional significance... [and would] markedly alter the respective and long standing roles of minister and Parliament in the legislative process"'' (House of Lords Constitutional Committee, reported in ^[4]. The Bill is, in essence, an Enabling Act in all but name.
After some amendment by the government and Lords, the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill received Royal Assent on 8 November 2006.^[5] Amendments included removing its ability to modify itself or the Human Rights Act 1998; most of the other modifications were much more subjectively defined.

In the United States

An enabling act, in reference to the admission of new states into the Union, is legislation passed by Congress authorizing the people of a territory to frame a constitution. The act also lays down the requirements that must be met as a prerequisite to statehood. These Acts have usually been titled "An Enabling Act for a State of (Name)".
Enabling acts of the United States include:

★ Alaska Statehood Act

★ Hawaii Admission Act

★ Enabling Act of 1802, for the formation of Ohio from the Northwest Territory

★ Enabling Act of 1889, for the formation of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington

★ Enabling Act of 1910, for the admission of Arizona [8]

References

1.
2.
3.
4. How I woke up to a nightmare plot to steal centuries of law and liberty Daniel Finkelstein
5. Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill receives Royal Assent, Press release CAB066/06 from the Cabinet Office, 8 November 2006.