“This parliament is a dead parliament,” [Geoffrey Cox] said. “It should no longer sit. It has no moral right to sit on these green benches.”
Expel the Johnson (Mussolini) Dictatorship.
September 26, 2019
September 24, 2019
A Significant Victory for Democracy in the UK
I view this as a great victory of Parliament over the Executive.
‘Bring Back Control’ to Parliament, not to a cabal of Tory misfits.
Simon Jenkins in this afternoon’s Guardian
He is somewhat sanguine in his final paragraph:
‘Whether that is sustainable in an era in which parliament and MPs are held in such low regard, in which the political parties are so fragmented and partisan, and in which the electoral system that creates the sovereign parliament is so slewed in its effects, has to be in doubt. The supreme court did not just sound the trumpet over a failed prime minister. It did the same over a failed constitutional order.’
I agree. Whether the UK will now embark on a written Constitution is still a matter of conjecture.
A trouble point remains; we still have the right wing media supported by capitalists on the make.
But I came to the Bill of Rights of 1688, late. I had misaligned it with the Glorious Revolution of 1689.
In the end the Bill of Rights was crucial to the Supreme Court’s ruling.
As an aside it was before the Act of Union of 1707.
September 19, 2019
The Supreme Court – John Crace summarises 19 September
John Crace at his best.
Far more to the point than mine on Newton and the Supreme Court
Newton and Prorogation of the UK Parliament
Isaac Newton in 1675: “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”.
Equally this applies to Law as it does to Mechanics.
So much is Case Law.
But with the Prorogation of Parliament by Johnson, there is too few Cases to build on other than the Bill of Rights 1688.
I note in his closing submissions, Keen said the judges should decline to become involved. “Whether it is dissolution or prorogation [of parliament], this is forbidden territory … It is a matter between the executive and parliament.
But this is a not possible as, as Parliament is not in session, the matter cannot be resolved ‘between the executive and parliament’
He continues “The applicants and petitioners are inviting the court into forbidden territory and an ill-defined minefield that the courts are not properly equipped to deal with.”
Nevertheless, the Bill of Rights 1688 provides for:
Dispensing and Suspending Power.
By Assumeing and Exerciseing a Power of Dispensing with and Suspending of Lawes and the Execution of Lawes without Consent of Parlyament
And can we expect Johnson now to tamper with:
Violating Elections.
By Violating the Freedome of Election of Members to serve in Parlyament
The real question remains, is the Executive above or subservient to the Parliament. Is the Executive ‘The Queen in Parliament’ and, even if so, the Bill of Rights states that ‘Exercising a Power of Dispensing with and Suspending of Lawes and the Execution of Lawes without Consent of Parlyament’.
We can only wait a see what the conclusions of Supreme Court comes up with. What ever verdict is arrived at we may hope that we can be able to, as Newton says, Stand on the shoulders of Giants for the future.
BTW Bill Jameson in today’s Scotsman suggests that if the Supreme Court cannot come to an agreed verdict it could appeal to the European Court of Justice.
August 29, 2019
Gina Miller to the Courts Again
Lawyers for the campaigner Gina Miller have made an urgent application to the high court for a judicial review of Boris Johnson’s plan to prorogue parliament, in the first shot in what will be an intense battle in the coming days to torpedo the prime minister’s plan.
“This is a brazen attempt, of truly historical magnitude, to prevent the executive being held accountable for its conduct before parliament,” said Miller,
“Anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller has as filed an urgent application for a legal challenge to stop Prime Minister Boris Johnson‘s “cynical and cowardly” plan to prorogue parliament.
“Whilst prorogation is an acceptable UK constitutional practice, no prime minister in modern history has attempted to use it in such a brazen manner,” Ms Miller wrote on a fundraising website set up fund the urgent application to the high court for a judicial review.
Ms Miller, … said the decision to suspend parliament a few weeks before the Brexit deadline was a “dark day for democracy”.
Opponents say it stop MPs from playing a full part in the Brexit process as the time they will have to pass laws to stop the UK leaving without a deal on 31 October would be cut.
I could add that if MPs fail to get a debate then the UK is heading for 1984.
Lets hope that Gina Miller gets to take her Action to the Supreme Court again and achieve the Rightful Publicity.
And that Bercow can resurrect good precedents.
March 3, 2019
Gina Miller to the Rescue
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/03/gina-miller-eu-delay-brexit-no-deal
Matthew d’Ancona thinks it less likely but it does look like a way forward out of the swamp of the Brexit mess.
And as Ancona says Gina Miller has already proved she can bring about the Unexpected and she has the determination to do so.
So here he goes:
“Armed with a legal opinion written by Kieron Beal QC and three other senior lawyers, the co-founder of the pro-remain campaign Lead Not Leave will argue that the EU council of ministers could itself, unilaterally, extend the article 50 deadline.
Why should it even contemplate doing so? First, because – as Miller’s legal paper points out – “the wording of article 50(3) presupposes that the European council take the decisive lead with the consent of the withdrawing member state”. Second, because the EU has a legal duty to all its member states to ensure that any such withdrawal is not damaging to what article 13(1) of the treaty on European Union calls the “consistency, effectiveness and continuity of its policies and actions”, or to the principle spelled out in article 13(2): “Pursuant to the principle of sincere cooperation the EU and the member states shall, in full mutual respect, assist each other in carrying out the tasks which flow from the treaties.”
Miller’s point, of course, is highly political as well as specifically jurisprudential. By circulating this opinion at the European parliament and in Brussels, she hopes to remind the EU that the legal, practical and moral obligation to prevent a catastrophic no-deal outcome is not confined to Westminster. Her message is addressed to figures such as Donald Tusk, the president of the council, and Jean-Claude Juncker, his counterpart at the European commission, but also to the EU body politic as a whole.”
“But she is reminding the 27 other member states that they cannot, as a matter of law as well as of supranational ethics, play Pilate and wash their hands of this mess. We are, to coin a phrase, all in this together”
If she makes the case and the EU acts, then Gina Miller deserves a statue in Parliament Square alongside Churchill.
Mike Vickers' Blog 