17. Power of President to promulgate ordinances during recess of Parliament:
(1) If at any time when the Federal Parliament is not in session, the President is satisfied that circumstances exist when render it necessary for him to take immediate action, he may promulgate such ordinances as the circumstances appear to him to require.
(2) An Ordinance promulgated under this section shall have the same force and effect as an Act of the Federal Parliament assented to by the President, but every such Ordinance—
(a) shall be laid before the Federal Parliament and shall cease to operate at the expiration of six weeks from the reassembly of the Federal Parliament, or, if before the expiration of that period resolutions disapproving it are passed by both Houses, upon the passing of the second of those resolutions; and
(b) may be withdrawn at any time by the President
(3) If and so far as an Ordinance under this section makes any provision which the Federal Parliament would not under this Constitution be competent to enact, it shall be void.
[Note: The Ordinance-making power has been the subject of great criticism under the present Constitution. It must however be pointed out that circumstances may exist where the immediate promulgation of a law is absolutely necessary and there is no time in which to summon the Federal Parliament In 1925, Lord Reading found it necessary to make an ordinance suspending the cotton excise duty when such action was immediately and imperatively required in the interests of the country. A democratically elected President who has moreover to act on the advice of Ministers responsible to Parliament, is not at all likely to abuse any Ordinance-making power with which he may be invested. Hence the proposed provision.]