Wednesday, 25 November 2009

Parliament Is Our Supreme Court

Rulings such as that today should have no force unless or until ratified by resolution of the House of Commons.
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6 comments:

  1. Will25 November 2009 at 20:43

    This is, I think, by far the most objectionable thing I have read on your blog. That a decision by a court, on a matter of legislative interpretation, should require ratification by the legislature before being enforceable! Extraordinary and appalling. Why is this any different than if the same decision was arrived at by the Court of Appeal, the Court of Session or the old Judicial Committee of the the House of Lords? To throw away the rule of law in such a callous way would be intolerable in any society. And what do you mean by "rulings such as that today"? What sort of 'rulings' exactly? The House of Lords and other appeal courts have been making rulings such as these for years. Exactly what class of decision should require legislative ratification?

    You have shown in the past an astonishing lack of knowledge about judicial issues. I remember you claiming that future justices of the UK Supreme Court would require to be given life peerages so that they could sit on the Judicial Committee of the Provy Council. Obvious nonsense - one need only be a Privy Counsellor to sit on the JCotPC! You can see on the website of the Supreme Court cases where non-law lords have sat in Privy Council appeals.

    I think you might need to think harder and longer about what exactly a policy such as this would entail.

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  2. David Lindsay26 November 2009 at 14:24

    Democracy is what it would mean.

    Having abolised the Law Lords in the service of the peculiarly American theory of the separation of powers, you presumably also wish to abolish all quasi-judicial functions of Ministers or of local council chairmen, as well as the role of the judges in making the whole of the Common Law, and much else besides. All because of something that you once heard on The Wire, or The Simpsons, or whatever.

    And then what? As will eventually be found to be the case, both trial by jury and trial by magistrates are contrary to you other pet cause, is contrary to the jurisprudence of a foreign court interpreting a foreign document. You, who object to the quasi-judicial powers of Ministers accountable to Parliament, also loathe both juries and magistrates, and for the same reason, namely hatred of the people at large.

    Without a resolution of the House of Commons (itself elected more proportionally and from candidates selected by means of something like an open primary system), no ruling of the European Court of Justice, nor or of the European Court of Human Rights, nor of the Supreme Court, nor pursuant to the Human Rights Act, should have any effect in the United Kingdom. The High Court of Parliament is precisely that: The High Court of Parliament.

    And as such, it cannot co-exist with a Supreme Court detached from Parliament and, being Supreme, both enjoying and, soon enough, exercising the right to strike down the Statute Law with no one to in any position to do anything about this monstrous overthrow of democracy and liberty.

    The present judiciary is riddled with old Communist Party activists and the like from back in the day. As in the form of New Labour, a project which now controls both parties, the student sectarian Left of the 1968 generation has now staged its coup.

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  3. Fred26 November 2009 at 14:46

    "You, who object to the quasi-judicial powers of Ministers accountable to Parliament, also loathe both juries and magistrates, and for the same reason, namely hatred of the people at large."

    Don't do this.

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  4. David Lindsay26 November 2009 at 14:57

    Do what? It's a fact.

    Most people think that it is because they are public school or something. But it isn't, at least not always or primarily. It is because they are Leninists. They see themselves as Lenin's vanguard elite, and also as the elite envisaged by Leo Strauss.

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  5. Fred26 November 2009 at 15:27

    Of the two people involved in that conversation, one of them was an expert in Will's opinion on juries and magistrates. The other one was you.

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  6. David Lindsay26 November 2009 at 16:41

    He hasn't said anything. And come on, we know the type.

    ReplyDelete

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