We must say no to this bad Lords reform

Walter Bagehot, in his high Victorian classic The English Constitution, wrote that the danger of the House of Lords certainly is, that it may never be reformed. Already the view’s been expressed that if you have a problem with the coalition’s House of Lords Reform Bill then, since the perfect is the enemy of the […]

A pointless constitutional abuse

By convention, the Queen grants Royal assent to legislation passed by the Lords and Commons. It’s only a constitutional convention that she does so: in other words, she does so because she herself, ministers, MPs and the public regard it as her constitutional obligation to do so. But as a matter of strict constitutional law, […]

Charon QC podcast: arresting the Pope, is legislation invalid, and a hung Parliament – who gets to be PM?

Charon QC interviewed me this afternoon as part of his “20 minutes” series of podcasts. First we spoke about arresting the Pope following my post earlier today. The we moved on briefly to discuss the former UKIP MEP Ashley Mote’s idea that all legislation since 2000 is “invalid“, before finishing with a discussion of who […]

The Tory legal bits

Following my post on the “legal bits” of the Labour manifesto, here’s my analysis of the most important Conservative proposals of particular legal interest. I warn you: this is a long one, and needs sub-headings. Constitutional law On the constitution, the Tories promise that A Conservative government will change the law so that never again […]

Elias LJ’s Renton lecture

After the great fun I had at last year’s inaugural Renton lecture, I thought I’d head to the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies to hear Elias LJ talk this year about “The rise of the Strasbourgeousie: judicial activism and the European Court of Human Rights”. He didn’t talk about the ECtHR itself, choosing to focus […]

Debbie Purdy, the Lords and assisted suicide: the easy way out?

I’ve been slow in reacting to the Lords’ final judgment yesterday in R (Purdy) v DPP, partly because I was in Cambridge, but partly because I’ve been worrying at the judgment since I heard the news reports yesterday, and even more so since I read it. I’ve been worrying about what’s wrong with it. Because […]

Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

I seriously dislike the word governance. Okay, it has some reasonable uses: in the phrase corporate governance, for instance, in which it has a useful sense of oversight from on high. Otherwise, it’s unbearably pompous. I also suspect politicians who use it have reached the “statesman” stage in which they’re more interested in their international […]

Lords judgment: R v Biggs-Price

The Lords gave judgment yesterday in this complex case, about confiscation of the proceeds of drugs offences. The main issue is actually whether the judge ruling on confiscation can take into account criminal conduct that the defendant has never been charged with, but which the judge thinks is proven beyond reasonable doubt (see para. 85 […]

Charon QC podcast on Abu Qatada

Charon spoke to me again this afternoon, this time about Abu Qatada – the Lords ruling on Wednesday and today’s ruling from Strasbourg awarding him compensation. We talk a bit about the man himself and the whole sage of his life in Britain, what evidence the courts have seen of his role in international jihad, […]