September 29 2019

It is generally a good idea, when losing a case before a court or regulatory tribunal, to concede with as much good grace as possible and to keep your immediate thoughts about the idiocy of the judges to yourself.  No good will come of it and you will look like a sore loser.  No-one sensible will pay any attention to what you say, your complaints falling into the “Well they would say that, wouldn’t they” category.  Even worse than being thought a sore loser is being thought of as your case’s Mandy Rice-Davies.

You may think that the tribunal or court may well have erred in law or fact or failed to take coherent and well-argued arguments into account or not given them the weight they deserved.  But it will be for others to make the considered analysis that any decision, particularly any important or controversial decision, needs.

There has recently been such a decision in relation to Britain’s constitutional arrangements, an area of law which does not normally make it to the front pages of anything.  Despite this, the Supreme Court’s decision on what prorogation of Parliament means and how such a power should be used by the executive is very well worth reading.

Reflections on it, those missing documents relating to how the government reached its decision – still to be provided to Parliament, despite its request – and the legal advice the Government received can be found here.

A companion piece to the Supreme Court’s judgment is this year’s Reith Lectures, a series of five lectures by a former Supreme Court judge, Lord Sumption, on the relationship between law and politics.  For all the fuss raised by over-excitable commentators (and even some apparently parti pris lawyers-turned-politicians) about the former straying into the latter, this is an argument which is as old as time itself. Those in power have always chafed when any sort of restraint is placed on their power, whether it came from the Church or law or Parliament or even the pesky people. And now those troublesome – and independent – judges are the latest to remind rulers that they too are subject to the law.

Judicial independence is there to protect the judges from over-mighty politicians. But much more importantly  – and this is usually forgotten, it – and the rule of law – are there to protect us.

Let the last word go to a former Lord Chancellor, Thomas More (as imagined by the playwright Robert Bolt in A Man For All Seasons):-

“And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned around on you–where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man’s laws, not God’s — and if you cut them down…d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.”  

August 11 2019

At the start of a week described by the government as “Crime Week”, this article is a reminder of why the rule of law and a properly functioning criminal justice system matter.

Photo by Joel & Jasmin Førestbird on Unsplash