constitution

Lady Hale’s injudicious speech

December 2, 2011

Does Lady Hale wish she were still sitting in the House of Lords, rather than the Supreme Court? Earlier this week she gave a striking speech to the Law Centres Federation conference. She opened her remarks by saying It is not the proper role of any judge to attack Government policy yet went on to [...]

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Brodie Clark’s tribunal claim – and Parliamentary privilege

November 10, 2011

The Guardian is reporting today that Home Office legal advisers think Brodie Clark, the former senior civil servant at the Border and Immigration Agency, will win his employment tribunal claim against the Home Office. I find this slightly strange, for a couple of reasons. First, if “Home Office lawyers” really have given such advice, I [...]

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Lord Phillips doubts his own independence

February 9, 2011

I never thought we needed a Supreme Court, myself. The Law Lords worked perfectly well as far as I was concerned. But we got one, the main justification for the increased expense being increased judicial independence. To me, this supposed gain was always a pure abstraction: no one really thought the Law Lords lacked independence [...]

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The EU Scrutiny Committee on the national sovereignty clause

December 8, 2010

I don’t agree with Bill Cash, chairman of the committee, when he says It is essential that it is made clear that Parliament, is the ultimate authority, and not the Supreme Court of the Court of Justice of the EU determines the United Kingdom’s relationship to the EU [sic]. That’s already perfectly clear to anyone [...]

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The EU Bill in the European Scrutiny Committee

November 25, 2010

Bill Cash’s European Scrutiny Committee of the Commons is looking at the EU Bill, and in particular is considering very closely clause 18, William Hague’s “national sovereignty clause”, which I’ve written about before. If you’re as interested as I am in this clause and the relationship between EU law and our own constitution, you’ll want [...]

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The “national sovereignty” clause: broken belt and braces

November 11, 2010

William Hague introduced his European Union Bill in the Commons today, and it will have its second reading as early as tomorrow – a debate that will no doubt be a treat. Much of the bill makes provision to require referendums before the UK can agree to treaty change conferring new power on the EU, [...]

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Charon QC podcast: William Hague’s “National Sovereignty” Clause

October 8, 2010

I know I’ve been away a few weeks – we all need a blog break occasionally – but I’m back with a bang, with a piece at the Guardian Law website yesterday on William Hague’s proposed “national sovereignty” clause, which he intends to put before Parliament in his EU Bill later this year to “reaffirm [...]

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The Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

September 9, 2010

Regular readers will know I’m opposed to fixed-term Parliaments. But that point of principle isn’t the only reason to be concerned about the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill. The Clerk of the House of Commons himself, Malcolm Jack, has expressed concerned about it, apparently, in his evidence to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, comments I first [...]

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Nick Clegg: “no to 55%”

July 5, 2010

I’m delighted that Nick Clegg has thought better of the proposal, initially agreed by the coalition, that Parliament should not be dissolved unless a majority of 55% votes for dissolution. This is what he said in his statement to the Commons today: First, we are introducing legislation to fix parliamentary terms. The date of the [...]

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Should Brown have resigned on the Friday?

June 2, 2010

I’ve been interested by a series of pieces musing on the political consequences of Gordon Brown’s decision to remain as Prime Minister for five days following the election – rather than resigning on the Friday. First to consider this was Toby Young in his Telegraph blog a couple of days later: I’ve been puzzling away [...]

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