Action for judicial review of the validity of secondary legislation may be brought before a court—e.g., the constitutional court.
[a] For example in Finland,[5] the practice is to delegate the making of secondary legislation ("decree", Finnish: asetus) mainly to the Finnish Government (the cabinet) as a whole, to individual ministries (made by the minister; e.g., where the change of legal position of persons is limited and technical), or to the President of the Republic (e.g., where implementing international treaty obligations do not require legislation).
Delegation to government agencies is exceptional (e.g., when the need for regulation is technical and may change rapidly) and done with extra caution.
The government can also create laws, called decree-law (Decreto-Ley), for urgent matters and are restricted on what they can do.
Privileged parties, such as Member States, EU institutions, and those with specific standing, may initiate litigation to challenge the validity of secondary legislation under the Treaties.
In Hong Kong, primary legislation includes ordinances of the domestic Legislative Council, and Nationwide Laws of the People's Republic of China extended to Hong Kong by the National People's Congress.
Subsidiary legislation in Hong Kong is made by the Executive Council or officials with delegated powers.
These activities take "legislative" and "judicial" forms, but they are exercises of—indeed, under our constitutional structure they must be exercises of—the "executive Power".In the United States, an Act of Congress at the federal level is the equivalent to the British concept of primary legislation.
This article incorporates text published under the British Open Government Licence: Parliament of the United Kingdom.