Talk:Act of Parliament

Entry says: This is wrong. In both Canada and Australia, both houses must pass the Bill; their situation is fundamentally the same as the United Kingdom. In all three cases, there are special circumstances were a Bill could become an Act despite being passed only by one house (use of the Parliament Act in the UK; joint sitting after double dissolution in Australia; in Canada, the House of Commons can override the Senate, but only in the case of proposals for a constitutional amendment).
 * 1)  a law passed by both houses of Parliament, and given Royal Assent
 * 2)  a law passed by Parliament, and given Royal Assent
 * 3)  a law passed by the lower house of Parliament, and given Royal Assent
 * 4)  a law passed by the lower house of Parliament, and given Royal Assent

Some points:
 * 1) the definition is really the same whether we are dealing with a bicameral Parliament (UK, Australia, Canada, most Australian states, etc.) or a unicameral one (e.g. New Zealand or Queensland or Malta). Issues of camerality are not essential to the definition
 * 2) the fact that bicameral systems often have the power to behave unicamerally in exceptional circumstances isn't really relevant to a dictionary definition either
 * 3) in the Westminster system, assent is important, but it needn't be Royal -- Presidental assent in a Westminster-style Republic would be equivalent. So royal assent is not essential to the definition. Consider Malta currently, or the proposals for an Australian republic voted down in the 1999 referendum

I think a better definition might be: So I am going to change it to the above. --SJK 02:52, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * 1)  a law which has received assent (whether royal or presidential or gubernatorial) after having been passed by the housess (or house) of Parliament

RFC discussion: March 2010
Is this a common noun, if so is it redundant to the lowercase spelling? Mglovesfun (talk) 09:58, 4 March 2010 (UTC)