Many statutes passed by the legislature will require the enactment of further detailed regulations to give them force. For example, the legislature may pass a broadcasting statute, but regulations will need to be drawn up to lay down the exact licensing procedure. Such regulations will usually be issued by the Minister responsible. This sort of statutory instrument is indeed legally binding, but it is inferior to a statute passed by the legislature. Should there be a conflict between the two, the statute will prevail.
Another type of statutory instrument is more problematic. Authoritarian governments will often rule by decree. A decree is also a law. Although most legal systems would take it to be inferior to a law passed by parliament, sometimes a decree may declare itself to be superior to other law, including even the Constitution. (The Nigerian military dictatorship, for example, enacted many decrees of this type.) In such difficult circumstances it will be the responsibility of the judiciary to assert the superiority of established law over the declarations of dictators.
