Tee hee!
As a general rule, I am not in favour of the unelected, self-selecting and self-serving judiciary imposing their will on an elected government, but as said government has tramped all over the Will Of The People on this, good on 'em.
Friday, 20 June 2008
"High Court urges EU treaty delay"
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6 comments:
Very interesting. COnsidering they delayed judgement because the ruling is of high importance, affecting the relationship between the law and Parliament, this is a very interesting statement. Parliament being sovereign the court would be expected to let it rest, but to pop up and say this ahead of the judgement perhaps give sus a peek at the judgement?
WIll they really say the courts can frustrate the business of parliament, if improper procedure is followed by the Executive?
It's called 'judicial review', aka. 'making it up as you go along', a bit like 'international law' or 'human rights law'.
I take it you're optimistic then? I think the judges are just enjoying their moment of glory and will chicken out in the end.
I am a cynical optimist :-P
No, I hold no hope that the judgement will have any affect whatsoever on the ratification of the treaty or on our membership of the EU. But it would extremely interesting if an act of a sovereign Parliament were to be overturned due to The Executive being found in breach of the law. That would surely assert some kind of judicial oversight of Parliament, which would be quite remarkable.
Of course, I am no lawyer, but but any judegement contrary to Parliamentary sovereignty would surely cause an upheaval?!!
Wait a mo - whatever the judges rule they cannot say that the statute must be put into abeyance. As I understand it - and the failure of Bill Cash in the High Court indicates - the Wheeler case is not a judicial review but analogous to a civil case in contract (ie "legitimate expectations" that the consideration for voting Labour was for a referendum on the Constitution to be held before ratification).
Gordon can still sign the instruments of ratification under the Act but, if the judges rule in Wheeler's favour, then the government must do its darndest to put through another act to set up a referendum. What a pickle!
Of course the referendum will be like the pools, "binding in honour only", so have no legally binding effect on Parliament or the government. However, being forced to hold a referendum - especially one which rejects the treaty - would be a severe (let's hope fatal) embarrassment for Gordon and Miliband.
U, Stuart W is going for judicial review!
'Legitimate expectation' is one of the few reasons under which you can start a judicial review case.
In contract law, this would be called 'implied terms' or something like that.
MW
Mea culpa - as you say it is a review as this makes clear.
In mitigation, your original link to the BBC story ends with this sentence: "Conservative MP Bill Cash launched a separate bid for a judicial review of the ratification process - which was rejected by the High Court". Hence my initial (mis)understanding that Wheeler's case was not a review rather than, as I now assume, a review on different grounds.
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