In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
You might have a point if the stuff arrived and worked and only then was the money paid over. But it either didn’t arrive or is useless and still the money has been paid over. That is the scandal - not the speed or trying everything in an emergency but that money was paid to a company with no track record based in a tax haven run by people with no experience of this (I have had experience of Tim Horlick in the past - seeing him involved does not reassure me) via a lot of dubious and unnecessarily complicated transactions (a sure sign that something odd is happening) which the government is trying to hide and still the NHS did not get what it needed.
What are the chances of getting that money back do you think?
It’s incompetent at best. At worst .....
You are right that something went wrong here (and the role of the advisor does look iffy to be honest). I think the point I am trying to make is that I would have been amazed if there hadn’t been money wasted so mere in the whole program and, as long as there were enough that did work, I’m not going to get too worked up at it under the circumstances.
£252 million is too much money to be wasted. No money should have been paid over until goods of the quality needed were handed over and there should have been an effective means of getting the money back. Is there? It seems not. That is a disgrace, quite apart from anything else which may have gone on.
In a pandemic that is costing the government over a hundred billion pounds how many doctors and nurses would you be prepared to see die in order to prevent millions from being wasted?
There is an old saying: You can be good, fast or cheap - but only two two of those three.
During the pandemic fast was the priority. Cheap went out the window. By acting as the government did it went fast (it got orders in quickly) and right (PPE of the right quality was ordered in enough quantity and quality to get to people) but it wasn't cheap because millions got wasted on orders that turned out to be the wrong quality. So be it. The alternative to fast and expensive was either fast and wrong (so not having enough PPE arrive at all) or slow and cheap. Neither were a better option.
Again missing the point. Nothing was delivered. There was no benefit to this contract at all. None. Other than for Horlick and chums who trousered millions. And apparently suffer no penalties for not having delivered.
Buy all means put in quick orders but make sure that if the companies turn out to be all mouth/no trousers you get your money back.
FFS! How hard is this simple point to understand?
How surprising is it that only an absolute fanatic Tory like Philip would support the Tory chums filling each others pockets at the public's expense. Happy to skimp on public and let thousands perish, while filling chums pockets.
So @Fysics_Teacher, this is an extreme example, but let’s say that Parliament passes a budget that allocates billions of pounds towards building schools. The Government then builds loads of new schools, but decides to not allow jews to go to them, in contravention of various laws of Parliament.
Are you saying that shouldn’t be judicially review able because Parliament passed a budget?
Passing a budget does not mean Parliament is approving of various laws to be disregarded. If the Government wants various laws not to apply, they should change the law.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
Imprisonment on anti-terrorism grounds, such as many prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and Belmarsh Prison, were being "punished" before the crime was committed.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
So @Fysics_Teacher, this is an extreme example, but let’s say that Parliament passes a budget that allocates billions of pounds towards building schools. The Government then builds loads of new schools, but decides to not allow jews to go to them, in contravention of various laws of Parliament.
Are you saying that shouldn’t be judicially review able because Parliament passed a budget?
Passing a budget does not mean Parliament is approving of various laws to be disregarded. If the Government wants various laws not to apply, they should change the law.
But the building of the schools and the entrance requirements to them are two very different things.
Let’s try a more realistic scenario: a government puts money aside in the budget to build a number of grammar schools, and the bill passes. Would it be reasonable for a Judicial Review to halt them on the grounds that they would discriminate against certain groups?
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Only if they can get Parliament to vote for it, thereby changing the law.
So @Fysics_Teacher, this is an extreme example, but let’s say that Parliament passes a budget that allocates billions of pounds towards building schools. The Government then builds loads of new schools, but decides to not allow jews to go to them, in contravention of various laws of Parliament.
Are you saying that shouldn’t be judicially review able because Parliament passed a budget?
Passing a budget does not mean Parliament is approving of various laws to be disregarded. If the Government wants various laws not to apply, they should change the law.
But the building of the schools and the entrance requirements to them are two very different things.
Let’s try a more realistic scenario: a government puts money aside in the budget to build a number of grammar schools, and the bill passes. Would it be reasonable for a Judicial Review to halt them on the grounds that they would discriminate against certain groups?
Perhaps? It depends on what the other laws say. The government could simply draft the bill that excludes any other law on the topic. Ergo no JR.
The problem is we have too many laws, in a difficult to search form, and not even the Government knows what they say.
That is what needs fixing. Not JR.
Remember that the building of a runway and the government’s commitment to climate change and air quality targets are two very different things too. What is wrong with making the Government explicitly exclude these requirements, or are they embarrassed by that fact and are trying to hide from them?
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Only if they can get Parliament to vote for it, thereby changing the law.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Parliament passed the budget, not the government.
That is not relevant. If you’d read my post you’d know that.
What would happen if the Gov't stuck in a "notwithstanding Paris" amendment to its roads building Act ? I'd actually favour that now tbh. "We didn't want to do this, but faced with the prospect of a lengthy JR we decided it was the quickest way to get badly needed roads up and running" "Of course our Gov't is committed to halting climate change via electric cars" and so on
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
Imprisonment on anti-terrorism grounds, such as many prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and Belmarsh Prison, were being "punished" before the crime was committed.
I am against internment if no crime has been committed.
The latest 538 polling averages have Biden's lead down to 7.6% nationally, from a peak of 9.6% just over a month ago. And down to 6% in Pennsylvania and 5.1% in Florida. It's probably what was expected, but still unwelcome. Pp
The answer has to be sort out trade agreements with everyone, and protect, so far as possible, the British economy. The trouble is that none of that is likely to be dramatic and eye-catching.
This thread tells us exactly why Johnson/Cummings are so keen to emasculate judicial review. Without it, it gets much easier to throw public money at their mates.
Sounds like libel to me. Hope you have deep pockets.
The pattern here is too upset the elite and it is working
The elite is loving it. This government of the elite is handing over public money left, right and centre to very wealthy, immensely privileged people. What’s to get upset about?
You are forgetting the alternative definition of "elite" which means anyone who points out what a gangster Johnson is.
To clarify my position on this: I think Judicial Review is needed to make sure that the executive (so not just the government but any state body) is actually following the law, particularly if irreparable harm may result.
I am much less happy about the prospect of Judicial Review of Acts of Parliament such as budgets.
@Fysics_Teacher and @RobD if Parliment passes a law saying “we want to build X” the implication is that they want to build X, within the existing legal parameters that exist.
The Government can’t then turn round and say - “well Parliament actually meant that law Y and Z does not apply”. Can you not see how that is a recipe for disaster? Think about it for a minute FFS.
If the Government wants laws to not apply, they need to say so. They need to get Parliament to pass a bill that says “We build scheme X, disregarding the provisions in law Y and Z”.
To clarify my position on this: I think Judicial Review is needed to make sure that the executive (so not just the government but any state body) is actually following the law, particularly if irreparable harm may result.
I am much less happy about the prospect of Judicial Review of Acts of Parliament such as budgets.
Budgets are not being judicially reviewed FFS. Why can’t you see that?
I expect that the true story is exactly what the last line quoted there says: that at the time you couldn't get masks with behind-head ties for love or money anywhere in the world, so the NHS had to make do with accepting ones with behind-ears ties. Now presumably the supply bottleneck is sorted out, and so they can use the better ones with behind-head ties.
To clarify my position on this: I think Judicial Review is needed to make sure that the executive (so not just the government but any state body) is actually following the law, particularly if irreparable harm may result.
I am much less happy about the prospect of Judicial Review of Acts of Parliament such as budgets.
Yes. One of the most dangerous features of the American system is the use of the judicial system to legislate. Which in turn makes control of the judiciary a political tool.
Do you remember the attempt, some years ago, to use judicial review combined with human rights legislation to make changes to pensions and other benefits essentially impossible?
To clarify my position on this: I think Judicial Review is needed to make sure that the executive (so not just the government but any state body) is actually following the law, particularly if irreparable harm may result.
I am much less happy about the prospect of Judicial Review of Acts of Parliament such as budgets.
Yes. One of the most dangerous features of the American system is the use of the judicial system to legislate. Which in turn makes control of the judiciary a political tool.
Do you remember the attempt, some years ago, to use judicial review combined with human rights legislation to make changes to pensions and other benefits essentially impossible?
Judicial review can never be used to legislate in this country as Parliament is supreme. Parliament can always amend legislation as they like.
How do they ensure there is adequate infrastructure like schools, parks, parking, etc?
Schools: It's the government's job to provide schools, if there are people who need a school they build or expand one.
Parks: There are loads of little parks all over the place. I'm not sure exactly what happens with entirely new developments - they seem to have parks, I guess the developers hand the land over to the government, since people want to live near parks.
Parking:
There's no socialized parking in Japan, it's a free market. It works great. You can't park on the street. There's a law that you have to have a contract parking space when you buy a car, but it's avoidable. There are loads of little car parks all over the place - the management companies can convert a vacant bit of land into a car park in pretty much no time. There's a tax on land which ensures that land is nearly always put to some productive use, so if you've got some land that'll be empty for 6 months before you start construction on it, you'll turn it into a temporary car park.
Recently I've been driving into Tokyo (Shibuya) when I go to meet a client because of the rona, and I typically pre-book and pay 2100 yen (15 GBP) to park all day.
What (if any) local criticism of the system is there?
Never heard any, - I guess it exists, but I don't think it's really that politicized. Japan has quite a strong tradition of property rights - for example there's a bit of land sticking out in the middle of Narita Airport where they're hoping to build a runway but they annoyed the farmer in the 1960s and he refuses to sell - so there's not really the assumption that you have in Britain that you have a right to decide what your neighbour does with their land.
Thank you so much. That’s very interesting.
How much of Japanese housing stock is in high rise compared to the traditional British suburb?
New British estates have green areas of “parkland” however most of the time it is not given to the council and is looked after privately by the homeowners, on top of council tax. Of course it’s still open to the public, and entirely unregulated.
So @Philip_Thompson what are your opinions on a land tax if we want to copy the Japanese system?
I think the system as a whole has some merit.
I am glad you have been won around that the system has merit.
The fundamental difference is that the two systems have been designed with different aims. The Japanese model is about letting people have secure homes - the British model is about letting people have secure house prices.
The British model has seen house prices sky rocket in the last three decades meaning people who own homes have become incredibly wealthy (especially those who own multiple homes) but make it difficult to buy your own home.
The Japanese model has seen house prices fall in real terms over the last three decades meaning people don't have wealth in their homes but they have a home.
I unabashedly prioritise homes over house prices. Houses should be somewhere secure for you to live and everyone should be able to try to own their own home. It shouldn't be a money making scheme. If you want to make money you should be going into work or running a business not becoming a landlord.
Can we - rarely - perhaps agree on this topic?
As for taxes I think a land value tax to replace Council Tax has merit. A tax based on ownership of the undeveloped value of the land - that way people are able to build whatever they want on the land without being punished through taxation and holding onto land without developing it is not rewarded by the taxpayer.
I expect that the true story is exactly what the last line quoted there says: that at the time you couldn't get masks with behind-head ties for love or money anywhere in the world, so the NHS had to make do with accepting ones with behind-ears ties. Now presumably the supply bottleneck is sorted out, and so they can use the better ones with behind-head ties.
I would judge anyone who worked to contract based off a specification from a URL as either extremely trusting or insane.
Unless you took a number of printed copies of said link, carefully notarised by lawyers, with date and time etc....
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Parliament passed the budget, not the government.
That is not relevant. If you’d read my post you’d know that.
But I think it is. If Parliament didn’t like it then they could have voted it down. Courts telling Parliament they got it wrong is why we are in a position where the whole concept of Judicial Review is being undermined.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Parliament passed the budget, not the government.
That is not relevant. If you’d read my post you’d know that.
But I think it is. If Parliament didn’t like it then they could have voted it down. Courts telling Parliament they got it wrong is why we are in a position where the whole concept of Judicial Review is being undermined.
You are not reading any of my posts. Parliament approved of building a runway. They did not approve of building it in such a way that is unlawful. What part of that distinction do you not understand?
It’s the Government that decided to disregard law X and Y. Not Parliament.
Hmm, I think national lockdowns are about to become a thing in a lot of European countries again. I'm surprised that Spain hasn't already implemented a full national lockdown the figures are very bad, they are looking at 4-6k new cases per day at the moment. Only the UK and Italy look like a second wave might not be as bad, it could be because both had such publicly awful initial outbreaks that tourists are avoiding them or people are too scared to travel.
You are aware that the Spanish numbers on worldometer INCLUDE antibody testing? So not all new cases. Yesterday 2,900 on Worldometer, 1,800 new cases
The situation here in Spain is very bad but it is concentrated in localities - several of the costas are especially bad now - my own for example. Justifying fully the decision to impose quarantines the other week. However, I doubt if there will be a national lockdown as the numbers don't justify it and not the money to pay for it.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Parliament passed the budget, not the government.
That is not relevant. If you’d read my post you’d know that.
But I think it is. If Parliament didn’t like it then they could have voted it down. Courts telling Parliament they got it wrong is why we are in a position where the whole concept of Judicial Review is being undermined.
You are not reading any of my posts. Parliament approved of building a runway. They did not approve of building it in such a way that is unlawful. What part of that distinction do you not understand?
It’s the Government that decided to disregard law X and Y. Not Parliament.
By parliament approving its construction surely it is now lawful?
I expect that the true story is exactly what the last line quoted there says: that at the time you couldn't get masks with behind-head ties for love or money anywhere in the world, so the NHS had to make do with accepting ones with behind-ears ties. Now presumably the supply bottleneck is sorted out, and so they can use the better ones with behind-head ties.
I would judge anyone who worked to contract based off a specification from a URL as either extremely trusting or insane.
Unless you took a number of printed copies of said link, carefully notarised by lawyers, with date and time etc....
What on earth were the DHSC doing giving a URL as a specification in a contract line. It's not peripheral to the contract either, like French working time practices/hours for your factory build either. It's abolubtely fundamental. Are these the geniuses who signed off the PFI shite under Brown ?
I expect that the true story is exactly what the last line quoted there says: that at the time you couldn't get masks with behind-head ties for love or money anywhere in the world, so the NHS had to make do with accepting ones with behind-ears ties. Now presumably the supply bottleneck is sorted out, and so they can use the better ones with behind-head ties.
Indeed all this seems much ado about nothing.
The demand for PPE surged worldwide, the government ordered whatever it could get, it was able to get better, so now it no longer needs this shipment. Oh well.
The shipment was ordered in good faith because it would be better than nothing and nothing is what the risk was we were facing. The shipment was delivered in good faith.
I honestly don't see what the big deal is here. Would people prefer there was no PPE available?
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
Imprisonment on anti-terrorism grounds, such as many prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and Belmarsh Prison, were being "punished" before the crime was committed.
I am against internment if no crime has been committed.
Judicial reviews are by definition reviews of decisions, not actions, and take place after the decision has been made. This before/after the fact distinction you have discovered is an accident of timing. They also don't detect or punish crime. Whoever said "sixteen year old communist" had a point - you don't seem to devote much time to ensuring that you know what you are on about.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Parliament passed the budget, not the government.
That is not relevant. If you’d read my post you’d know that.
But I think it is. If Parliament didn’t like it then they could have voted it down. Courts telling Parliament they got it wrong is why we are in a position where the whole concept of Judicial Review is being undermined.
You are not reading any of my posts. Parliament approved of building a runway. They did not approve of building it in such a way that is unlawful. What part of that distinction do you not understand?
It’s the Government that decided to disregard law X and Y. Not Parliament.
By parliament approving its construction surely it is now lawful?
The house itself is "only a 4 bed", but there are lots of other rooms. Dedicated Yoga studio (and garden), for example...
There is a house* not far from me where the owners flattened the previous one and then got a German firm in to build a new one using pre-fab technology. It went up very quickly and looks pretty nice.
*I had to stop myself continuing “in New Orleans”...
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Parliament passed the budget, not the government.
That is not relevant. If you’d read my post you’d know that.
But I think it is. If Parliament didn’t like it then they could have voted it down. Courts telling Parliament they got it wrong is why we are in a position where the whole concept of Judicial Review is being undermined.
You are not reading any of my posts. Parliament approved of building a runway. They did not approve of building it in such a way that is unlawful. What part of that distinction do you not understand?
It’s the Government that decided to disregard law X and Y. Not Parliament.
By parliament approving its construction surely it is now lawful?
They approved an allocation of money - that’s it.
There was a specific vote on Heathrow, wasn't there?
@RobD if Parliament approved in a budget money towards building schools, and then the Government decided to build them out of Asbestos, contrary to various health and safety laws, has Parliament approved that?
@RobD if Parliament approved in a budget money towards building schools, and then the Government decided to build them out of Asbestos, contrary to various health and safety laws, has Parliament approved that?
The answer is no, they have not.
There was a vote on the expansion plans themselves, not just an allocation of money.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Parliament passed the budget, not the government.
That is not relevant. If you’d read my post you’d know that.
But I think it is. If Parliament didn’t like it then they could have voted it down. Courts telling Parliament they got it wrong is why we are in a position where the whole concept of Judicial Review is being undermined.
You are not reading any of my posts. Parliament approved of building a runway. They did not approve of building it in such a way that is unlawful. What part of that distinction do you not understand?
It’s the Government that decided to disregard law X and Y. Not Parliament.
By parliament approving its construction surely it is now lawful?
They approved an allocation of money - that’s it.
There was a specific vote on Heathrow, wasn't there?
I don’t know - you tell me? The problem is that it all depends on what Parliament agreed. As I keep saying, and it keeps being ignored, it’s one thing to approve a project, and another to agree to disregard the existing legal framework in the country.
I don’t understand how you can’t see why they are two separate things? This is a fundamental part of a legal system FFS, and always has been.
I expect that the true story is exactly what the last line quoted there says: that at the time you couldn't get masks with behind-head ties for love or money anywhere in the world, so the NHS had to make do with accepting ones with behind-ears ties. Now presumably the supply bottleneck is sorted out, and so they can use the better ones with behind-head ties.
Indeed all this seems much ado about nothing.
The demand for PPE surged worldwide, the government ordered whatever it could get, it was able to get better, so now it no longer needs this shipment. Oh well.
The shipment was ordered in good faith because it would be better than nothing and nothing is what the risk was we were facing. The shipment was delivered in good faith.
I honestly don't see what the big deal is here. Would people prefer there was no PPE available?
Indeed - it's not as if anyone went out to the back garden and slaughtered a defenceless animal.
@RobD if Parliament approved in a budget money towards building schools, and then the Government decided to build them out of Asbestos, contrary to various health and safety laws, has Parliament approved that?
The answer is no, they have not.
There was a vote on the expansion plans themselves, not just an allocation of money.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Parliament passed the budget, not the government.
That is not relevant. If you’d read my post you’d know that.
But I think it is. If Parliament didn’t like it then they could have voted it down. Courts telling Parliament they got it wrong is why we are in a position where the whole concept of Judicial Review is being undermined.
You are not reading any of my posts. Parliament approved of building a runway. They did not approve of building it in such a way that is unlawful. What part of that distinction do you not understand?
It’s the Government that decided to disregard law X and Y. Not Parliament.
By parliament approving its construction surely it is now lawful?
They approved an allocation of money - that’s it.
There was a specific vote on Heathrow, wasn't there?
I don’t know - you tell me? The problem is that it all depends on what Parliament agreed. As I keep saying, and it keeps being ignored, it’s one thing to approve a project, and another to agree to disregard the existing legal framework in the country.
I don’t understand how you can’t see why they are two separate things? This is a fundamental part of a legal system FFS, and always has been.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Parliament passed the budget, not the government.
That is not relevant. If you’d read my post you’d know that.
But I think it is. If Parliament didn’t like it then they could have voted it down. Courts telling Parliament they got it wrong is why we are in a position where the whole concept of Judicial Review is being undermined.
You are not reading any of my posts. Parliament approved of building a runway. They did not approve of building it in such a way that is unlawful. What part of that distinction do you not understand?
It’s the Government that decided to disregard law X and Y. Not Parliament.
By parliament approving its construction surely it is now lawful?
They approved an allocation of money - that’s it.
There was a specific vote on Heathrow, wasn't there?
I don’t know - you tell me? The problem is that it all depends on what Parliament agreed. As I keep saying, and it keeps being ignored, it’s one thing to approve a project, and another to agree to disregard the existing legal framework in the country.
I don’t understand how you can’t see why they are two separate things? This is a fundamental part of a legal system FFS, and always has been.
I guess it all comes down to the expectation that the Government should have taken into account the law of the land when designing the scheme. For example if the scheme was going to result if another law being contravened then the expectation is that counter-measures are to be put in place. If the Government cant be arsed to do that, then it’s on them.
I haven’t read the JR case, and to be honest I don’t really want to, so I don’t know the reasons why it succeeded and I doubt you do too.
I expect that the true story is exactly what the last line quoted there says: that at the time you couldn't get masks with behind-head ties for love or money anywhere in the world, so the NHS had to make do with accepting ones with behind-ears ties. Now presumably the supply bottleneck is sorted out, and so they can use the better ones with behind-head ties.
Indeed all this seems much ado about nothing.
The demand for PPE surged worldwide, the government ordered whatever it could get, it was able to get better, so now it no longer needs this shipment. Oh well.
The shipment was ordered in good faith because it would be better than nothing and nothing is what the risk was we were facing. The shipment was delivered in good faith.
I honestly don't see what the big deal is here. Would people prefer there was no PPE available?
Re yesterday's discussion, mainly with Philip, re Govt contact and trace handing out family contact information on an individual basis, each one to a different contact and trace person (as criticized on Newsnight) as opposed to giving a family group to an individual contact person to contact:
Today's figures:
Govt contact and trace 61% successful Local contact and trace 93% successful
Isn't that because local government can do more options like knocking on doors? Which centralised call centres aren't doing?
I'm not sure how that's relevant to the conversation we had.
I also think the local authorities are handling the 'complex' cases, that are actually may be easier sometimes (e.g. workplaces, where we know who has been on site). Our Uni is running its own building occupancy tracking ap with this in mind). I really wonder how much call-barring and screening is reducing the ability to contact people.
I expect that the true story is exactly what the last line quoted there says: that at the time you couldn't get masks with behind-head ties for love or money anywhere in the world, so the NHS had to make do with accepting ones with behind-ears ties. Now presumably the supply bottleneck is sorted out, and so they can use the better ones with behind-head ties.
Indeed all this seems much ado about nothing.
The demand for PPE surged worldwide, the government ordered whatever it could get, it was able to get better, so now it no longer needs this shipment. Oh well.
The shipment was ordered in good faith because it would be better than nothing and nothing is what the risk was we were facing. The shipment was delivered in good faith.
I honestly don't see what the big deal is here. Would people prefer there was no PPE available?
I hadn't realised it was a binary choice.
Well it was.
It was a binary choice - cut corners on the tendering process and order what you can get, or run out of stock in days.
Get real. I could have drafted a repayment/escrow clause in 5 minutes. There are plenty of lawyers in government who could have done it. There would have been no delay.
Instead of which the government handed over money and got nothing in return. How many people died because of that? And you seek to justify it?
There are people in here who will kiss the govt's a*rse no matter what...
Doing a basic credit check, a look on Companies House to see how long the business has been running and inserting a "safety clause" in the contract boilerplate should be standard procedure.
After all, the alarm bells should have went off went it turned out that Prospermill lacked banking facilities as pointed out in the Tweet.
The Tories are the finest government that money can buy...
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Parliament passed the budget, not the government.
That is not relevant. If you’d read my post you’d know that.
But I think it is. If Parliament didn’t like it then they could have voted it down. Courts telling Parliament they got it wrong is why we are in a position where the whole concept of Judicial Review is being undermined.
You are not reading any of my posts. Parliament approved of building a runway. They did not approve of building it in such a way that is unlawful. What part of that distinction do you not understand?
It’s the Government that decided to disregard law X and Y. Not Parliament.
By parliament approving its construction surely it is now lawful?
They approved an allocation of money - that’s it.
I think we have reached the limits of what can be gained from this argument. You think that Parliament should be bound by earlier decisions unless It explicitly says not, I think that the act of passing the Bill into law implicitly does the same (or at least should) to prevent some long forgotten Act coming back to prevent Parliament’s will from being enacted.
I can even see some advantages in your version and I am happy to accept that that is the way it currently works. My point, badly put at times I admit, is that making Parliament responsible for its decisions and not the courts is the more democratic course.
I've started getting into Grand Designs. [Is this the start of being middle aged?] Incredible to me how cheaply they seem to build houses, particularly the ones out of wood.
And yet also how badly they estimate costs. It usually ends up 2-3 times what they thought it would
I haven't seen any of those massive cost overrun episodes yet. But huge overruns in time.
Be warned, it can be an addictive show. Look out for how many times they have no experience of managing such a project. Sometimes it works. Other times...
Grand Designs is entirely driven by story and narrative ie showbusiness.
If you are planning to go on it, have a couple of preplanned crises, otherwise they will create some.
I recommend "Your House Made Perfect" over GD any time, or "The House that 100k Built", or even Sarah Beany's "Double the House for Half the Money".
Far more realistic.
And remember that McCloud's basic profession is interior decoration. Though he has broadened his horizons a little.
I also strongly suspect Mcloud records several versions of his monologues during the process, so they can pick the right, most prescient, version for the show...
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Parliament passed the budget, not the government.
That is not relevant. If you’d read my post you’d know that.
But I think it is. If Parliament didn’t like it then they could have voted it down. Courts telling Parliament they got it wrong is why we are in a position where the whole concept of Judicial Review is being undermined.
You are not reading any of my posts. Parliament approved of building a runway. They did not approve of building it in such a way that is unlawful. What part of that distinction do you not understand?
It’s the Government that decided to disregard law X and Y. Not Parliament.
By parliament approving its construction surely it is now lawful?
They approved an allocation of money - that’s it.
I think we have reached the limits of what can be gained from this argument. You think that Parliament should be bound by earlier decisions unless It explicitly says not, I think that the act of passing the Bill into law implicitly does the same (or at least should) to prevent some long forgotten Act coming back to prevent Parliament’s will from being enacted.
I can even see some advantages in your version and I am happy to accept that that is the way it currently works. My point, badly put at times I admit, is that making Parliament responsible for its decisions and not the courts is the more democratic course.
I think if there is a conflict then a later bill should automatically override an earlier bill, unless either law says otherwise.
EG as far as I recall the Human Rights Act explicitly says that it overrides other laws. If a future law explicitly overrides the Human Rights Act then the later law would take precedence (it explicitly overriding the earliers explicit nature) but if it doesn't then the Human Rights Act takes precedence because it says so.
However if there's two bills neither of which say they take precedence it should be the most recent one passed that takes precedence.
I expect that the true story is exactly what the last line quoted there says: that at the time you couldn't get masks with behind-head ties for love or money anywhere in the world, so the NHS had to make do with accepting ones with behind-ears ties. Now presumably the supply bottleneck is sorted out, and so they can use the better ones with behind-head ties.
Indeed all this seems much ado about nothing.
The demand for PPE surged worldwide, the government ordered whatever it could get, it was able to get better, so now it no longer needs this shipment. Oh well.
The shipment was ordered in good faith because it would be better than nothing and nothing is what the risk was we were facing. The shipment was delivered in good faith.
I honestly don't see what the big deal is here. Would people prefer there was no PPE available?
I hadn't realised it was a binary choice.
Well it was.
It was a binary choice - cut corners on the tendering process and order what you can get, or run out of stock in days.
But these ones weren't used were they, so someone in charge presumably hadn't a clue as to whether they going to 'run out of stock in days'?
Get real. I could have drafted a repayment/escrow clause in 5 minutes. There are plenty of lawyers in government who could have done it. There would have been no delay.
Instead of which the government handed over money and got nothing in return. How many people died because of that? And you seek to justify it?
There are people in here who will kiss the govt's a*rse no matter what...
Doing a basic credit check, a look on Companies House to see how long the business has been running and inserting a "safety clause" in the contract boilerplate should be standard procedure.
After all, the alarm bells should have went off went it turned out that Prospermill lacked banking facilities as pointed out in the Tweet.
The Tories are the finest government that money can buy...
Bernie Ecclestone says hi...
I assume @Foxy was commenting on how much better this government was than Tony’s.
I expect that the true story is exactly what the last line quoted there says: that at the time you couldn't get masks with behind-head ties for love or money anywhere in the world, so the NHS had to make do with accepting ones with behind-ears ties. Now presumably the supply bottleneck is sorted out, and so they can use the better ones with behind-head ties.
Indeed all this seems much ado about nothing.
The demand for PPE surged worldwide, the government ordered whatever it could get, it was able to get better, so now it no longer needs this shipment. Oh well.
The shipment was ordered in good faith because it would be better than nothing and nothing is what the risk was we were facing. The shipment was delivered in good faith.
I honestly don't see what the big deal is here. Would people prefer there was no PPE available?
I hadn't realised it was a binary choice.
Well it was.
It was a binary choice - cut corners on the tendering process and order what you can get, or run out of stock in days.
But these ones weren't used were they, so someone in charge presumably hadn't a clue as to whether they going to 'run out of stock in days'?
These ones weren't the only ones ordered.
On an individual basis then no they didn't but on an aggregate level yes they did. It is intellectually dishonest to look at an individual case and not the aggregate.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Parliament passed the budget, not the government.
That is not relevant. If you’d read my post you’d know that.
But I think it is. If Parliament didn’t like it then they could have voted it down. Courts telling Parliament they got it wrong is why we are in a position where the whole concept of Judicial Review is being undermined.
You are not reading any of my posts. Parliament approved of building a runway. They did not approve of building it in such a way that is unlawful. What part of that distinction do you not understand?
It’s the Government that decided to disregard law X and Y. Not Parliament.
By parliament approving its construction surely it is now lawful?
They approved an allocation of money - that’s it.
I think we have reached the limits of what can be gained from this argument. You think that Parliament should be bound by earlier decisions unless It explicitly says not, I think that the act of passing the Bill into law implicitly does the same (or at least should) to prevent some long forgotten Act coming back to prevent Parliament’s will from being enacted.
I can even see some advantages in your version and I am happy to accept that that is the way it currently works. My point, badly put at times I admit, is that making Parliament responsible for its decisions and not the courts is the more democratic course.
But what you say is exactly what happens. New laws overrule existing laws. However if a law does not mention another law that it does not directly overrule, then the previous law also still stands. This is what happened here.
Parliament voted for a scheme to be built. They did not disregard the existing laws on clean air. Therefore the courts *must* (how else are they going to do it?) assume that Parliament intended the scheme to be built with the clean air requirements still in place.
It’s all very well saying “its obvious what Parliament intended” but it isn’t, and there must be an objective way of looking at it, otherwise how will there be any consistency in the law?
I know Heathrow is a particular annoying example, because it is objectively fairly obvious that Parliament approved it being built and didn’t really care about the environmental impact - but judges must go off what the law actually says.
Just strikes me as incompetence in the civil service and/or the Government to be honest.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Parliament passed the budget, not the government.
That is not relevant. If you’d read my post you’d know that.
But I think it is. If Parliament didn’t like it then they could have voted it down. Courts telling Parliament they got it wrong is why we are in a position where the whole concept of Judicial Review is being undermined.
You are not reading any of my posts. Parliament approved of building a runway. They did not approve of building it in such a way that is unlawful. What part of that distinction do you not understand?
It’s the Government that decided to disregard law X and Y. Not Parliament.
By parliament approving its construction surely it is now lawful?
They approved an allocation of money - that’s it.
I think we have reached the limits of what can be gained from this argument. You think that Parliament should be bound by earlier decisions unless It explicitly says not, I think that the act of passing the Bill into law implicitly does the same (or at least should) to prevent some long forgotten Act coming back to prevent Parliament’s will from being enacted.
I can even see some advantages in your version and I am happy to accept that that is the way it currently works. My point, badly put at times I admit, is that making Parliament responsible for its decisions and not the courts is the more democratic course.
I think if there is a conflict then a later bill should automatically override an earlier bill, unless either law says otherwise.
EG as far as I recall the Human Rights Act explicitly says that it overrides other laws. If a future law explicitly overrides the Human Rights Act then the later law would take precedence (it explicitly overriding the earliers explicit nature) but if it doesn't then the Human Rights Act takes precedence because it says so.
However if there's two bills neither of which say they take precedence it should be the most recent one passed that takes precedence.
I expect that the true story is exactly what the last line quoted there says: that at the time you couldn't get masks with behind-head ties for love or money anywhere in the world, so the NHS had to make do with accepting ones with behind-ears ties. Now presumably the supply bottleneck is sorted out, and so they can use the better ones with behind-head ties.
Indeed all this seems much ado about nothing.
The demand for PPE surged worldwide, the government ordered whatever it could get, it was able to get better, so now it no longer needs this shipment. Oh well.
The shipment was ordered in good faith because it would be better than nothing and nothing is what the risk was we were facing. The shipment was delivered in good faith.
I honestly don't see what the big deal is here. Would people prefer there was no PPE available?
I hadn't realised it was a binary choice.
Well it was.
It was a binary choice - cut corners on the tendering process and order what you can get, or run out of stock in days.
But these ones weren't used were they, so someone in charge presumably hadn't a clue as to whether they going to 'run out of stock in days'?
These ones weren't the only ones ordered.
On an individual basis then no they didn't but on an aggregate level yes they did. It is intellectually dishonest to look at an individual case and not the aggregate.
Even if the individual case involves £150m (or whatever figure passes for a rounding error in BJ world nowadays)? Ok.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Parliament passed the budget, not the government.
That is not relevant. If you’d read my post you’d know that.
But I think it is. If Parliament didn’t like it then they could have voted it down. Courts telling Parliament they got it wrong is why we are in a position where the whole concept of Judicial Review is being undermined.
You are not reading any of my posts. Parliament approved of building a runway. They did not approve of building it in such a way that is unlawful. What part of that distinction do you not understand?
It’s the Government that decided to disregard law X and Y. Not Parliament.
By parliament approving its construction surely it is now lawful?
They approved an allocation of money - that’s it.
I think we have reached the limits of what can be gained from this argument. You think that Parliament should be bound by earlier decisions unless It explicitly says not, I think that the act of passing the Bill into law implicitly does the same (or at least should) to prevent some long forgotten Act coming back to prevent Parliament’s will from being enacted.
I can even see some advantages in your version and I am happy to accept that that is the way it currently works. My point, badly put at times I admit, is that making Parliament responsible for its decisions and not the courts is the more democratic course.
But what you say is exactly what happens. New laws overrule existing laws. However if a law does not mention another law that it does not directly overrule, then the previous law also still stands. This is what happened here.
Parliament voted for a scheme to be built. They did not disregard the existing laws on clean air. Therefore the courts *must* (how else are they going to do it?) assume that Parliament intended the scheme to be built with the clean air requirements still in place.
It’s all very well saying “its obvious what Parliament intended” but it isn’t, and there must be an objective way of looking at it, otherwise how will there be any consistency in the law?
I know Heathrow is a particular annoying example, because it is objectively fairly obvious that Parliament approved it being built and didn’t really care about the environmental impact - but judges must go off what the law actually says.
Just strikes me as incompetence in the civil service and/or the Government to be honest.
On that particular example I strongly suspect that Boris would love to see the whole thing quietly dropped as he wasn’t exactly its biggest fan in the first place.
Indeed in the post C19 world I expect the idea of expanding airport capacity will not be popular.
I expect that the true story is exactly what the last line quoted there says: that at the time you couldn't get masks with behind-head ties for love or money anywhere in the world, so the NHS had to make do with accepting ones with behind-ears ties. Now presumably the supply bottleneck is sorted out, and so they can use the better ones with behind-head ties.
Indeed all this seems much ado about nothing.
The demand for PPE surged worldwide, the government ordered whatever it could get, it was able to get better, so now it no longer needs this shipment. Oh well.
The shipment was ordered in good faith because it would be better than nothing and nothing is what the risk was we were facing. The shipment was delivered in good faith.
I honestly don't see what the big deal is here. Would people prefer there was no PPE available?
I hadn't realised it was a binary choice.
Well it was.
It was a binary choice - cut corners on the tendering process and order what you can get, or run out of stock in days.
But these ones weren't used were they, so someone in charge presumably hadn't a clue as to whether they going to 'run out of stock in days'?
These ones weren't the only ones ordered.
On an individual basis then no they didn't but on an aggregate level yes they did. It is intellectually dishonest to look at an individual case and not the aggregate.
Even if the individual case involves £150m or whatever figure passes for a rounding error in BJ world nowadays? Ok.
100% yes.
The government is spending hundreds of billions of pounds on this pandemic. Many billions on the PPE. A few hundred million getting wasted on failed PPE is neither here nor there compared to running out of PPE and inflicting billions more of damage on the economy.
If it wasn't for the pandemic then normal tendering rules should apply, but they were explicitly dropped due to the pandemic and as a result things like this happen. C'est la vie, that's why you normally have the normal tendering rules. But wasting money buying something you turn out not to need is better than saving money by not buying something you did need.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Parliament passed the budget, not the government.
That is not relevant. If you’d read my post you’d know that.
But I think it is. If Parliament didn’t like it then they could have voted it down. Courts telling Parliament they got it wrong is why we are in a position where the whole concept of Judicial Review is being undermined.
You are not reading any of my posts. Parliament approved of building a runway. They did not approve of building it in such a way that is unlawful. What part of that distinction do you not understand?
It’s the Government that decided to disregard law X and Y. Not Parliament.
By parliament approving its construction surely it is now lawful?
They approved an allocation of money - that’s it.
I think we have reached the limits of what can be gained from this argument. You think that Parliament should be bound by earlier decisions unless It explicitly says not, I think that the act of passing the Bill into law implicitly does the same (or at least should) to prevent some long forgotten Act coming back to prevent Parliament’s will from being enacted.
I can even see some advantages in your version and I am happy to accept that that is the way it currently works. My point, badly put at times I admit, is that making Parliament responsible for its decisions and not the courts is the more democratic course.
But what you say is exactly what happens. New laws overrule existing laws. However if a law does not mention another law that it does not directly overrule, then the previous law also still stands. This is what happened here.
Parliament voted for a scheme to be built. They did not disregard the existing laws on clean air. Therefore the courts *must* (how else are they going to do it?) assume that Parliament intended the scheme to be built with the clean air requirements still in place.
It’s all very well saying “its obvious what Parliament intended” but it isn’t, and there must be an objective way of looking at it, otherwise how will there be any consistency in the law?
I know Heathrow is a particular annoying example, because it is objectively fairly obvious that Parliament approved it being built and didn’t really care about the environmental impact - but judges must go off what the law actually says.
Just strikes me as incompetence in the civil service and/or the Government to be honest.
On that particular example I strongly suspect that Boris would love to see the whole thing quietly dropped as he wasn’t exactly its biggest fan in the first place.
Indeed in the post C19 world I expect the idea of expanding airport capacity will not be popular.
Even if he still wanted to built it, he has a 80 seat majority in Parliament. He could force an amendment through in a day if he wanted to. The courts cannot stop a Government with a parliamentary majority doing anything.
I expect that the true story is exactly what the last line quoted there says: that at the time you couldn't get masks with behind-head ties for love or money anywhere in the world, so the NHS had to make do with accepting ones with behind-ears ties. Now presumably the supply bottleneck is sorted out, and so they can use the better ones with behind-head ties.
Indeed all this seems much ado about nothing.
The demand for PPE surged worldwide, the government ordered whatever it could get, it was able to get better, so now it no longer needs this shipment. Oh well.
The shipment was ordered in good faith because it would be better than nothing and nothing is what the risk was we were facing. The shipment was delivered in good faith.
I honestly don't see what the big deal is here. Would people prefer there was no PPE available?
I hadn't realised it was a binary choice.
Well it was.
It was a binary choice - cut corners on the tendering process and order what you can get, or run out of stock in days.
But these ones weren't used were they, so someone in charge presumably hadn't a clue as to whether they going to 'run out of stock in days'?
These ones weren't the only ones ordered.
On an individual basis then no they didn't but on an aggregate level yes they did. It is intellectually dishonest to look at an individual case and not the aggregate.
For an economist, surely the question is not about ties but why did the government use this firm (or these firms) which had neither stocks nor manufacturing capacity nor even expertise? Surely they are just rent-seekers.
I've started getting into Grand Designs. [Is this the start of being middle aged?] Incredible to me how cheaply they seem to build houses, particularly the ones out of wood.
And yet also how badly they estimate costs. It usually ends up 2-3 times what they thought it would
I haven't seen any of those massive cost overrun episodes yet. But huge overruns in time.
Be warned, it can be an addictive show. Look out for how many times they have no experience of managing such a project. Sometimes it works. Other times...
Grand Designs is entirely driven by story and narrative ie showbusiness.
If you are planning to go on it, have a couple of preplanned crises, otherwise they will create some.
I recommend "Your House Made Perfect" over GD any time, or "The House that 100k Built", or even Sarah Beany's "Double the House for Half the Money".
Far more realistic.
And remember that McCloud's basic profession is interior decoration. Though he has broadened his horizons a little.
I also strongly suspect Mcloud records several versions of his monologues during the process, so they can pick the right, most prescient, version for the show...
You are assuming the monologues are not created after the fact.....
I remember one, where a Northern Irish shop fitting contractor built a huge house, where McCloud seemed upset that the whole thing worked out so smoothly.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Parliament passed the budget, not the government.
That is not relevant. If you’d read my post you’d know that.
But I think it is. If Parliament didn’t like it then they could have voted it down. Courts telling Parliament they got it wrong is why we are in a position where the whole concept of Judicial Review is being undermined.
You are not reading any of my posts. Parliament approved of building a runway. They did not approve of building it in such a way that is unlawful. What part of that distinction do you not understand?
It’s the Government that decided to disregard law X and Y. Not Parliament.
By parliament approving its construction surely it is now lawful?
They approved an allocation of money - that’s it.
I think we have reached the limits of what can be gained from this argument. You think that Parliament should be bound by earlier decisions unless It explicitly says not, I think that the act of passing the Bill into law implicitly does the same (or at least should) to prevent some long forgotten Act coming back to prevent Parliament’s will from being enacted.
I can even see some advantages in your version and I am happy to accept that that is the way it currently works. My point, badly put at times I admit, is that making Parliament responsible for its decisions and not the courts is the more democratic course.
I think if there is a conflict then a later bill should automatically override an earlier bill, unless either law says otherwise.
EG as far as I recall the Human Rights Act explicitly says that it overrides other laws. If a future law explicitly overrides the Human Rights Act then the later law would take precedence (it explicitly overriding the earliers explicit nature) but if it doesn't then the Human Rights Act takes precedence because it says so.
However if there's two bills neither of which say they take precedence it should be the most recent one passed that takes precedence.
What you said is exactly what happens.
In which case why doesn't the Airport authorisation bill take precedence over the clean air bill? Unless the clean air bill said that it takes precedence over future bills the Airport bill as the latter of the two should have had precedence - it was approved because it was approved, regardless of what other laws said.
The Spanish Health Ministry reported on Wednesday that 1,772 new Covid-19 cases had been diagnosed in the past 24 hours. This is up from 1,178 on Tuesday and 968 on Monday.
According to the latest figures, weekly infections have increased tenfold since Spain entered the "new normality," jumping from 1,762 to 18,298.
And, according to The Economist, the northeastern region of Aragón has the highest 14-day cumulative incidence of Covid-19 of any area in Europe El Pais.
I expect that the true story is exactly what the last line quoted there says: that at the time you couldn't get masks with behind-head ties for love or money anywhere in the world, so the NHS had to make do with accepting ones with behind-ears ties. Now presumably the supply bottleneck is sorted out, and so they can use the better ones with behind-head ties.
Indeed all this seems much ado about nothing.
The demand for PPE surged worldwide, the government ordered whatever it could get, it was able to get better, so now it no longer needs this shipment. Oh well.
The shipment was ordered in good faith because it would be better than nothing and nothing is what the risk was we were facing. The shipment was delivered in good faith.
I honestly don't see what the big deal is here. Would people prefer there was no PPE available?
I hadn't realised it was a binary choice.
Well it was.
It was a binary choice - cut corners on the tendering process and order what you can get, or run out of stock in days.
But these ones weren't used were they, so someone in charge presumably hadn't a clue as to whether they going to 'run out of stock in days'?
These ones weren't the only ones ordered.
On an individual basis then no they didn't but on an aggregate level yes they did. It is intellectually dishonest to look at an individual case and not the aggregate.
For an economist, surely the question is not about ties but why did the government use this firm (or these firms) which had neither stocks nor manufacturing capacity nor even expertise? Surely they are just rent-seekers.
Because they were able to provide supply. That happens in the supply chain all the time, not only manufacturers trade.
On topic, the problem with Sunakism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.
To be fair to Sunak he is just following orders. It is a handy tactic as if it all goes wrong eventually, Mr Johnson can shrug his shoulders and deny any knowledge of Sunak's profligacy.
Voting intentions are similar to the picture in June. Ipsos MORI’s headline figures have the Conservatives on 45% (+2), Labour 37% (-1), Liberal Democrats 6% (-4).
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Parliament passed the budget, not the government.
That is not relevant. If you’d read my post you’d know that.
But I think it is. If Parliament didn’t like it then they could have voted it down. Courts telling Parliament they got it wrong is why we are in a position where the whole concept of Judicial Review is being undermined.
You are not reading any of my posts. Parliament approved of building a runway. They did not approve of building it in such a way that is unlawful. What part of that distinction do you not understand?
It’s the Government that decided to disregard law X and Y. Not Parliament.
By parliament approving its construction surely it is now lawful?
They approved an allocation of money - that’s it.
I think we have reached the limits of what can be gained from this argument. You think that Parliament should be bound by earlier decisions unless It explicitly says not, I think that the act of passing the Bill into law implicitly does the same (or at least should) to prevent some long forgotten Act coming back to prevent Parliament’s will from being enacted.
I can even see some advantages in your version and I am happy to accept that that is the way it currently works. My point, badly put at times I admit, is that making Parliament responsible for its decisions and not the courts is the more democratic course.
I think if there is a conflict then a later bill should automatically override an earlier bill, unless either law says otherwise.
EG as far as I recall the Human Rights Act explicitly says that it overrides other laws. If a future law explicitly overrides the Human Rights Act then the later law would take precedence (it explicitly overriding the earliers explicit nature) but if it doesn't then the Human Rights Act takes precedence because it says so.
However if there's two bills neither of which say they take precedence it should be the most recent one passed that takes precedence.
What you said is exactly what happens.
In which case why doesn't the Airport authorisation bill take precedence over the clean air bill? Unless the clean air bill said that it takes precedence over future bills the Airport bill as the latter of the two should have had precedence - it was approved because it was approved, regardless of what other laws said.
What you are saying doesn’t make sense.
There’s no reason why you can’t build an airport and continue to comply with the clean air bill, so why would it be overruled, unless Parliament explicitly said so?
We’re not talking about building the airport itself, but the requirements needed to continue to comply with the previous law.
You can’t just arbitrarily decide what laws continue to stand or don’t unless its stated. How would that even work in practice? It doesn’t.
The Spanish Health Ministry reported on Wednesday that 1,772 new Covid-19 cases had been diagnosed in the past 24 hours. This is up from 1,178 on Tuesday and 968 on Monday.
According to the latest figures, weekly infections have increased tenfold since Spain entered the "new normality," jumping from 1,762 to 18,298.
And, according to The Economist, the northeastern region of Aragón has the highest 14-day cumulative incidence of Covid-19 of any area in Europe El Pais.
How badly was Aragon affected back in March/April?
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Parliament passed the budget, not the government.
That is not relevant. If you’d read my post you’d know that.
But I think it is. If Parliament didn’t like it then they could have voted it down. Courts telling Parliament they got it wrong is why we are in a position where the whole concept of Judicial Review is being undermined.
You are not reading any of my posts. Parliament approved of building a runway. They did not approve of building it in such a way that is unlawful. What part of that distinction do you not understand?
It’s the Government that decided to disregard law X and Y. Not Parliament.
By parliament approving its construction surely it is now lawful?
They approved an allocation of money - that’s it.
I think we have reached the limits of what can be gained from this argument. You think that Parliament should be bound by earlier decisions unless It explicitly says not, I think that the act of passing the Bill into law implicitly does the same (or at least should) to prevent some long forgotten Act coming back to prevent Parliament’s will from being enacted.
I can even see some advantages in your version and I am happy to accept that that is the way it currently works. My point, badly put at times I admit, is that making Parliament responsible for its decisions and not the courts is the more democratic course.
But what you say is exactly what happens. New laws overrule existing laws. However if a law does not mention another law that it does not directly overrule, then the previous law also still stands. This is what happened here.
Parliament voted for a scheme to be built. They did not disregard the existing laws on clean air. Therefore the courts *must* (how else are they going to do it?) assume that Parliament intended the scheme to be built with the clean air requirements still in place.
It’s all very well saying “its obvious what Parliament intended” but it isn’t, and there must be an objective way of looking at it, otherwise how will there be any consistency in the law?
I know Heathrow is a particular annoying example, because it is objectively fairly obvious that Parliament approved it being built and didn’t really care about the environmental impact - but judges must go off what the law actually says.
Just strikes me as incompetence in the civil service and/or the Government to be honest.
On that particular example I strongly suspect that Boris would love to see the whole thing quietly dropped as he wasn’t exactly its biggest fan in the first place.
Indeed in the post C19 world I expect the idea of expanding airport capacity will not be popular.
Even if he still wanted to built it, he has a 80 seat majority in Parliament. He could force an amendment through in a day if he wanted to. The courts cannot stop a Government with a parliamentary majority doing anything.
In this case I can’t see it happening.
Can I ask how hard you found your legal studies? You’ve pretty much got the better of me on this one, and I was wondering how much time was spent on the law and how much on how to construct a persuasive argument?
Get real. I could have drafted a repayment/escrow clause in 5 minutes. There are plenty of lawyers in government who could have done it. There would have been no delay.
Instead of which the government handed over money and got nothing in return. How many people died because of that? And you seek to justify it?
There are people in here who will kiss the govt's a*rse no matter what...
Doing a basic credit check, a look on Companies House to see how long the business has been running and inserting a "safety clause" in the contract boilerplate should be standard procedure.
After all, the alarm bells should have went off went it turned out that Prospermill lacked banking facilities as pointed out in the Tweet.
The Tories are the finest government that money can buy...
Bernie Ecclestone says hi...
...but they had to return Bernie's money. Next attempt was cash for honours, but that fell at the first fence. The Blair Government really weren't very good at corruption.
This government on the other hand are majestic in the dark arts. Richard Desmond? Ten grand to the Tory Party and a £50m tax bill avoided. And what of Boris Johnson's "lavender list"? It makes Harold and Marcia's list look like the work of rank amateurs!
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Parliament passed the budget, not the government.
That is not relevant. If you’d read my post you’d know that.
But I think it is. If Parliament didn’t like it then they could have voted it down. Courts telling Parliament they got it wrong is why we are in a position where the whole concept of Judicial Review is being undermined.
You are not reading any of my posts. Parliament approved of building a runway. They did not approve of building it in such a way that is unlawful. What part of that distinction do you not understand?
It’s the Government that decided to disregard law X and Y. Not Parliament.
By parliament approving its construction surely it is now lawful?
They approved an allocation of money - that’s it.
I think we have reached the limits of what can be gained from this argument. You think that Parliament should be bound by earlier decisions unless It explicitly says not, I think that the act of passing the Bill into law implicitly does the same (or at least should) to prevent some long forgotten Act coming back to prevent Parliament’s will from being enacted.
I can even see some advantages in your version and I am happy to accept that that is the way it currently works. My point, badly put at times I admit, is that making Parliament responsible for its decisions and not the courts is the more democratic course.
But what you say is exactly what happens. New laws overrule existing laws. However if a law does not mention another law that it does not directly overrule, then the previous law also still stands. This is what happened here.
Parliament voted for a scheme to be built. They did not disregard the existing laws on clean air. Therefore the courts *must* (how else are they going to do it?) assume that Parliament intended the scheme to be built with the clean air requirements still in place.
It’s all very well saying “its obvious what Parliament intended” but it isn’t, and there must be an objective way of looking at it, otherwise how will there be any consistency in the law?
I know Heathrow is a particular annoying example, because it is objectively fairly obvious that Parliament approved it being built and didn’t really care about the environmental impact - but judges must go off what the law actually says.
Just strikes me as incompetence in the civil service and/or the Government to be honest.
On that particular example I strongly suspect that Boris would love to see the whole thing quietly dropped as he wasn’t exactly its biggest fan in the first place.
Indeed in the post C19 world I expect the idea of expanding airport capacity will not be popular.
Even if he still wanted to built it, he has a 80 seat majority in Parliament. He could force an amendment through in a day if he wanted to. The courts cannot stop a Government with a parliamentary majority doing anything.
In this case I can’t see it happening.
Can I ask how hard you found your legal studies? You’ve pretty much got the better of me on this one, and I was wondering how much time was spent on the law and how much on how to construct a persuasive argument?
I’m just a bit sick and tired of JR being used as a scapegoat for Governmental laziness or incompetence. They know the courts cant stop them doing anything, so its purely a political tool to further the “people vs the elite” narrative. JR has evolved over hundreds of years and is there for good reason, but it has very little teeth as it is, and is really nothing more than an inconvenience.
I’m enjoying them thank you. The year just gone was mainly about learning what the law is, and how to apply it to various situations and problems. It’s next year where I’ll learn the procedural and vocational side of being a solicitor, although I don’t think I’ll be doing much in the way of persuasion, as I don’t intend to be a barrister.
Interestingly my highest mark was on an essay arguing whether we should have a codified constitution or not.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Parliament passed the budget, not the government.
That is not relevant. If you’d read my post you’d know that.
But I think it is. If Parliament didn’t like it then they could have voted it down. Courts telling Parliament they got it wrong is why we are in a position where the whole concept of Judicial Review is being undermined.
You are not reading any of my posts. Parliament approved of building a runway. They did not approve of building it in such a way that is unlawful. What part of that distinction do you not understand?
It’s the Government that decided to disregard law X and Y. Not Parliament.
By parliament approving its construction surely it is now lawful?
I doubt if building a runway causes too many environmental issues. Now, flying lots of planes off the runway ...
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Parliament passed the budget, not the government.
That is not relevant. If you’d read my post you’d know that.
But I think it is. If Parliament didn’t like it then they could have voted it down. Courts telling Parliament they got it wrong is why we are in a position where the whole concept of Judicial Review is being undermined.
You are not reading any of my posts. Parliament approved of building a runway. They did not approve of building it in such a way that is unlawful. What part of that distinction do you not understand?
It’s the Government that decided to disregard law X and Y. Not Parliament.
By parliament approving its construction surely it is now lawful?
I doubt if building a runway causes too many environmental issues. Now, flying lots of planes off the runway ...
I haven't read the plan carefully, but I think it involved the use of the runway for planes.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Parliament passed the budget, not the government.
That is not relevant. If you’d read my post you’d know that.
But I think it is. If Parliament didn’t like it then they could have voted it down. Courts telling Parliament they got it wrong is why we are in a position where the whole concept of Judicial Review is being undermined.
You are not reading any of my posts. Parliament approved of building a runway. They did not approve of building it in such a way that is unlawful. What part of that distinction do you not understand?
It’s the Government that decided to disregard law X and Y. Not Parliament.
By parliament approving its construction surely it is now lawful?
They approved an allocation of money - that’s it.
I think we have reached the limits of what can be gained from this argument. You think that Parliament should be bound by earlier decisions unless It explicitly says not, I think that the act of passing the Bill into law implicitly does the same (or at least should) to prevent some long forgotten Act coming back to prevent Parliament’s will from being enacted.
I can even see some advantages in your version and I am happy to accept that that is the way it currently works. My point, badly put at times I admit, is that making Parliament responsible for its decisions and not the courts is the more democratic course.
I think if there is a conflict then a later bill should automatically override an earlier bill, unless either law says otherwise.
EG as far as I recall the Human Rights Act explicitly says that it overrides other laws. If a future law explicitly overrides the Human Rights Act then the later law would take precedence (it explicitly overriding the earliers explicit nature) but if it doesn't then the Human Rights Act takes precedence because it says so.
However if there's two bills neither of which say they take precedence it should be the most recent one passed that takes precedence.
What you said is exactly what happens.
In which case why doesn't the Airport authorisation bill take precedence over the clean air bill? Unless the clean air bill said that it takes precedence over future bills the Airport bill as the latter of the two should have had precedence - it was approved because it was approved, regardless of what other laws said.
What you are saying doesn’t make sense.
There’s no reason why you can’t build an airport and continue to comply with the clean air bill, so why would it be overruled, unless Parliament explicitly said so?
We’re not talking about building the airport itself, but the requirements needed to continue to comply with the previous law.
You can’t just arbitrarily decide what laws continue to stand or don’t unless its stated. How would that even work in practice? It doesn’t.
I'm sorry if I'm not being clear.
I mean I was under the impression that Parliament had explicitly authorised construction of the runway as proposed. Not simply approved the concept or approved expenditure but explicitly authorised that specific plan.
In which case I'd have thought that plan was authorised and that would by virtue of Parliament's powers override any concerns like the clean air act - since Parliament had authorised this specific plan after that act was authorised.
In which case the clean air law would still apply and could be used for other planning issues not authorised by Parliament.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Parliament passed the budget, not the government.
That is not relevant. If you’d read my post you’d know that.
But I think it is. If Parliament didn’t like it then they could have voted it down. Courts telling Parliament they got it wrong is why we are in a position where the whole concept of Judicial Review is being undermined.
You are not reading any of my posts. Parliament approved of building a runway. They did not approve of building it in such a way that is unlawful. What part of that distinction do you not understand?
It’s the Government that decided to disregard law X and Y. Not Parliament.
By parliament approving its construction surely it is now lawful?
They approved an allocation of money - that’s it.
I think we have reached the limits of what can be gained from this argument. You think that Parliament should be bound by earlier decisions unless It explicitly says not, I think that the act of passing the Bill into law implicitly does the same (or at least should) to prevent some long forgotten Act coming back to prevent Parliament’s will from being enacted.
I can even see some advantages in your version and I am happy to accept that that is the way it currently works. My point, badly put at times I admit, is that making Parliament responsible for its decisions and not the courts is the more democratic course.
I think if there is a conflict then a later bill should automatically override an earlier bill, unless either law says otherwise.
EG as far as I recall the Human Rights Act explicitly says that it overrides other laws. If a future law explicitly overrides the Human Rights Act then the later law would take precedence (it explicitly overriding the earliers explicit nature) but if it doesn't then the Human Rights Act takes precedence because it says so.
However if there's two bills neither of which say they take precedence it should be the most recent one passed that takes precedence.
What you said is exactly what happens.
In which case why doesn't the Airport authorisation bill take precedence over the clean air bill? Unless the clean air bill said that it takes precedence over future bills the Airport bill as the latter of the two should have had precedence - it was approved because it was approved, regardless of what other laws said.
What you are saying doesn’t make sense.
There’s no reason why you can’t build an airport and continue to comply with the clean air bill, so why would it be overruled, unless Parliament explicitly said so?
We’re not talking about building the airport itself, but the requirements needed to continue to comply with the previous law.
You can’t just arbitrarily decide what laws continue to stand or don’t unless its stated. How would that even work in practice? It doesn’t.
I'm sorry if I'm not being clear.
I mean I was under the impression that Parliament had explicitly authorised construction of the runway as proposed. Not simply approved the concept or approved expenditure but explicitly authorised that specific plan.
In which case I'd have thought that plan was authorised and that would by virtue of Parliament's powers override any concerns like the clean air act - since Parliament had authorised this specific plan after that act was authorised.
In which case the clean air law would still apply and could be used for other planning issues not authorised by Parliament.
Does that make any more sense?
Well if that is the case, then I agree with you.
I haven’t read the JR case so I don’t know exactly what the grounds were for success.
However I don’t see any reason why on cases like these where the Government suspects that people might try and use JR to delay, they can’t write into the bill that JR does not apply to that particular decision, or something to that effect.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Parliament passed the budget, not the government.
That is not relevant. If you’d read my post you’d know that.
But I think it is. If Parliament didn’t like it then they could have voted it down. Courts telling Parliament they got it wrong is why we are in a position where the whole concept of Judicial Review is being undermined.
You are not reading any of my posts. Parliament approved of building a runway. They did not approve of building it in such a way that is unlawful. What part of that distinction do you not understand?
It’s the Government that decided to disregard law X and Y. Not Parliament.
By parliament approving its construction surely it is now lawful?
They approved an allocation of money - that’s it.
I think we have reached the limits of what can be gained from this argument. You think that Parliament should be bound by earlier decisions unless It explicitly says not, I think that the act of passing the Bill into law implicitly does the same (or at least should) to prevent some long forgotten Act coming back to prevent Parliament’s will from being enacted.
I can even see some advantages in your version and I am happy to accept that that is the way it currently works. My point, badly put at times I admit, is that making Parliament responsible for its decisions and not the courts is the more democratic course.
But what you say is exactly what happens. New laws overrule existing laws. However if a law does not mention another law that it does not directly overrule, then the previous law also still stands. This is what happened here.
Parliament voted for a scheme to be built. They did not disregard the existing laws on clean air. Therefore the courts *must* (how else are they going to do it?) assume that Parliament intended the scheme to be built with the clean air requirements still in place.
It’s all very well saying “its obvious what Parliament intended” but it isn’t, and there must be an objective way of looking at it, otherwise how will there be any consistency in the law?
I know Heathrow is a particular annoying example, because it is objectively fairly obvious that Parliament approved it being built and didn’t really care about the environmental impact - but judges must go off what the law actually says.
Just strikes me as incompetence in the civil service and/or the Government to be honest.
On that particular example I strongly suspect that Boris would love to see the whole thing quietly dropped as he wasn’t exactly its biggest fan in the first place.
Indeed in the post C19 world I expect the idea of expanding airport capacity will not be popular.
Even if he still wanted to built it, he has a 80 seat majority in Parliament. He could force an amendment through in a day if he wanted to. The courts cannot stop a Government with a parliamentary majority doing anything.
In this case I can’t see it happening.
Can I ask how hard you found your legal studies? You’ve pretty much got the better of me on this one, and I was wondering how much time was spent on the law and how much on how to construct a persuasive argument?
I’m just a bit sick and tired of JR being used as a scapegoat for Governmental laziness or incompetence. They know the courts cant stop them doing anything, so its purely a political tool to further the “people vs the elite” narrative. JR has evolved over hundreds of years and is there for good reason, but it has very little teeth as it is, and is really nothing more than an inconvenience.
I’m enjoying them thank you. The year just gone was mainly about learning what the law is, and how to apply it to various situations and problems. It’s next year where I’ll learn the procedural and vocational side of being a solicitor, although I don’t think I’ll be doing much in the way of persuasion, as I don’t intend to be a barrister.
Interestingly my highest mark was on an essay arguing whether we should have a codified constitution or not.
Good luck: hopefully you end up doing something a bit more interesting than conveyancing!
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Parliament passed the budget, not the government.
That is not relevant. If you’d read my post you’d know that.
But I think it is. If Parliament didn’t like it then they could have voted it down. Courts telling Parliament they got it wrong is why we are in a position where the whole concept of Judicial Review is being undermined.
You are not reading any of my posts. Parliament approved of building a runway. They did not approve of building it in such a way that is unlawful. What part of that distinction do you not understand?
It’s the Government that decided to disregard law X and Y. Not Parliament.
By parliament approving its construction surely it is now lawful?
They approved an allocation of money - that’s it.
I think we have reached the limits of what can be gained from this argument. You think that Parliament should be bound by earlier decisions unless It explicitly says not, I think that the act of passing the Bill into law implicitly does the same (or at least should) to prevent some long forgotten Act coming back to prevent Parliament’s will from being enacted.
I can even see some advantages in your version and I am happy to accept that that is the way it currently works. My point, badly put at times I admit, is that making Parliament responsible for its decisions and not the courts is the more democratic course.
But what you say is exactly what happens. New laws overrule existing laws. However if a law does not mention another law that it does not directly overrule, then the previous law also still stands. This is what happened here.
Parliament voted for a scheme to be built. They did not disregard the existing laws on clean air. Therefore the courts *must* (how else are they going to do it?) assume that Parliament intended the scheme to be built with the clean air requirements still in place.
It’s all very well saying “its obvious what Parliament intended” but it isn’t, and there must be an objective way of looking at it, otherwise how will there be any consistency in the law?
I know Heathrow is a particular annoying example, because it is objectively fairly obvious that Parliament approved it being built and didn’t really care about the environmental impact - but judges must go off what the law actually says.
Just strikes me as incompetence in the civil service and/or the Government to be honest.
On that particular example I strongly suspect that Boris would love to see the whole thing quietly dropped as he wasn’t exactly its biggest fan in the first place.
Indeed in the post C19 world I expect the idea of expanding airport capacity will not be popular.
Even if he still wanted to built it, he has a 80 seat majority in Parliament. He could force an amendment through in a day if he wanted to. The courts cannot stop a Government with a parliamentary majority doing anything.
In this case I can’t see it happening.
Can I ask how hard you found your legal studies? You’ve pretty much got the better of me on this one, and I was wondering how much time was spent on the law and how much on how to construct a persuasive argument?
I’m just a bit sick and tired of JR being used as a scapegoat for Governmental laziness or incompetence. They know the courts cant stop them doing anything, so its purely a political tool to further the “people vs the elite” narrative. JR has evolved over hundreds of years and is there for good reason, but it has very little teeth as it is, and is really nothing more than an inconvenience.
I’m enjoying them thank you. The year just gone was mainly about learning what the law is, and how to apply it to various situations and problems. It’s next year where I’ll learn the procedural and vocational side of being a solicitor, although I don’t think I’ll be doing much in the way of persuasion, as I don’t intend to be a barrister.
Interestingly my highest mark was on an essay arguing whether we should have a codified constitution or not.
Did you see the Ted talk on how to order pizza like a lawyer (by a lawyer)?
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Parliament passed the budget, not the government.
That is not relevant. If you’d read my post you’d know that.
But I think it is. If Parliament didn’t like it then they could have voted it down. Courts telling Parliament they got it wrong is why we are in a position where the whole concept of Judicial Review is being undermined.
You are not reading any of my posts. Parliament approved of building a runway. They did not approve of building it in such a way that is unlawful. What part of that distinction do you not understand?
It’s the Government that decided to disregard law X and Y. Not Parliament.
By parliament approving its construction surely it is now lawful?
They approved an allocation of money - that’s it.
I think we have reached the limits of what can be gained from this argument. You think that Parliament should be bound by earlier decisions unless It explicitly says not, I think that the act of passing the Bill into law implicitly does the same (or at least should) to prevent some long forgotten Act coming back to prevent Parliament’s will from being enacted.
I can even see some advantages in your version and I am happy to accept that that is the way it currently works. My point, badly put at times I admit, is that making Parliament responsible for its decisions and not the courts is the more democratic course.
But what you say is exactly what happens. New laws overrule existing laws. However if a law does not mention another law that it does not directly overrule, then the previous law also still stands. This is what happened here.
Parliament voted for a scheme to be built. They did not disregard the existing laws on clean air. Therefore the courts *must* (how else are they going to do it?) assume that Parliament intended the scheme to be built with the clean air requirements still in place.
It’s all very well saying “its obvious what Parliament intended” but it isn’t, and there must be an objective way of looking at it, otherwise how will there be any consistency in the law?
I know Heathrow is a particular annoying example, because it is objectively fairly obvious that Parliament approved it being built and didn’t really care about the environmental impact - but judges must go off what the law actually says.
Just strikes me as incompetence in the civil service and/or the Government to be honest.
On that particular example I strongly suspect that Boris would love to see the whole thing quietly dropped as he wasn’t exactly its biggest fan in the first place.
Indeed in the post C19 world I expect the idea of expanding airport capacity will not be popular.
Even if he still wanted to built it, he has a 80 seat majority in Parliament. He could force an amendment through in a day if he wanted to. The courts cannot stop a Government with a parliamentary majority doing anything.
In this case I can’t see it happening.
Can I ask how hard you found your legal studies? You’ve pretty much got the better of me on this one, and I was wondering how much time was spent on the law and how much on how to construct a persuasive argument?
I’m just a bit sick and tired of JR being used as a scapegoat for Governmental laziness or incompetence. They know the courts cant stop them doing anything, so its purely a political tool to further the “people vs the elite” narrative. JR has evolved over hundreds of years and is there for good reason, but it has very little teeth as it is, and is really nothing more than an inconvenience.
I’m enjoying them thank you. The year just gone was mainly about learning what the law is, and how to apply it to various situations and problems. It’s next year where I’ll learn the procedural and vocational side of being a solicitor, although I don’t think I’ll be doing much in the way of persuasion, as I don’t intend to be a barrister.
Interestingly my highest mark was on an essay arguing whether we should have a codified constitution or not.
Good luck: hopefully you end up doing something a bit more interesting than conveyancing!
Thank you very much! I have actually decided that I want to do high-street/transactional work so conveyancing may be what I end up doing! I don’t mind though, I want to work with normal people rather than big business. We’ll see what opportunities arise.
The answer has to be sort out trade agreements with everyone, and protect, so far as possible, the British economy. The trouble is that none of that is likely to be dramatic and eye-catching.
See what you mean! In other words, yes, there will be eye-catching drama, but with PM Johnson having to explain himself. And there won't be a fridge in which to hide. One wonders, how many old-fashioned Conservatives there still are in the House; who put honour and reputation above fortune, or perchance, becoming a Lord.
Why do you think the government wants to limit judicial review? So that the government won’t have to explain itself.
Or so the government can actually act without taking forever being dragged through the courts to make any decisions. The same as dealing with planning issues.
Let the public at elections be the ones that judge the government's decision making, not lawyers.
Ah yes, I forgot. You want the government to be above the law not subject to it.
Divine right of World Kings - the Tory party’s new mission statement.
No I want the government to set the law. I want the public to hold the government to account.
The right of the voters not kings. The government are put there and held to account by the voters.
However you finesse it, you are still saying that the government should not be subject to the law.
It’s very simple: if you accept that the government should be subject to the law then there has to be a means by which that is enforceable ie by citizens taking the government to court and the government having to obey the law and court rulings.
If you don’t accept that then you want the government to be above the law.
I have no problems with the government being subject to the law after the fact. If I steal and am caught then I am subject to the law and can be fined or jailed after the fact.
I object to judicial reviews being abused for time wasting and obstructionism. If the government has broken the law then I have no problem with a review after the fact determining the law was broken and applying an appropriate punishment. That way the law is enforceable, but the system can't be abused by obstructionism.
Not wanting the system abused friviously is quite different to stating governments should only be accountable at the ballot box. The latter very much would mean governments could wilfully be unlawful and hope the unlawfullness is popular.
If the government is to be challenged on lawfulness then we cannot so flippantly erode JR. And your justifications reveal it would be flippantly done as the itd be done in anger because how dare anyone but the voters judge it.
If the system is too easy to abuse it needs revision. Itd be far from the only legal issue that needs revision. But it would need to be done cautiously, with care and consideration. Your words, if reflective of the government position, demonstrate no intention of such care or consideration. Just 'voters judge not lawyers'.
My words are my own thinking and I have no connection to the government or politics in general other than it is an interest of mine. So please do not judge the government by anything I ever say, unlike HYUFD I don't pretend to speak for anyone other than myself.
If governments are wilfully unlawful they should be investigated by the Police and prosecuted for any crimes they commit same as anyone else. My understanding (and I may be wrong) is judicial review is typically an injunction done before decisions come into force to ensure the decision is lawful first and then the act can be done. I am saying, barring anything truly extreme, it should be the other way around. The act should happen and THEN the review and any related prosecution if appropriate should occur.
My understanding is that if someone is corrupt or commits malfeasance in a public office then that is a common law crime that the CPS can prosecute. I am not for one second saying that shouldn't occur.
It's your thinking but the reasoning seems to match the governments.
In general this government philosophically thinks much like I do, which is why I like it. When the government didn't (like last year under Theresa May) I was a vocal critic.
So in general you are a pathological liar , always looking to get other people's cash by any means, bone idle and would throw your granny under a bus if it saved your skin.
I expect that the true story is exactly what the last line quoted there says: that at the time you couldn't get masks with behind-head ties for love or money anywhere in the world, so the NHS had to make do with accepting ones with behind-ears ties. Now presumably the supply bottleneck is sorted out, and so they can use the better ones with behind-head ties.
Indeed all this seems much ado about nothing.
The demand for PPE surged worldwide, the government ordered whatever it could get, it was able to get better, so now it no longer needs this shipment. Oh well.
The shipment was ordered in good faith because it would be better than nothing and nothing is what the risk was we were facing. The shipment was delivered in good faith.
I honestly don't see what the big deal is here. Would people prefer there was no PPE available?
I hadn't realised it was a binary choice.
Well it was.
It was a binary choice - cut corners on the tendering process and order what you can get, or run out of stock in days.
But these ones weren't used were they, so someone in charge presumably hadn't a clue as to whether they going to 'run out of stock in days'?
These ones weren't the only ones ordered.
On an individual basis then no they didn't but on an aggregate level yes they did. It is intellectually dishonest to look at an individual case and not the aggregate.
For an economist, surely the question is not about ties but why did the government use this firm (or these firms) which had neither stocks nor manufacturing capacity nor even expertise? Surely they are just rent-seekers.
Because they were able to provide supply. That happens in the supply chain all the time, not only manufacturers trade.
But they weren't. If they'd been an established supplier, whether wholesale or retail, they'd have known about the ties question. They are what people complained about on Labour's list, rightly or wrongly. They were at the Arthur Daley end of rent-seekers, and their needing to rope in a sister company to sign the cheque should have been another red flag.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Then why did they vote for it?
Because they approved of a new runway? That doesn’t mean it cant be implemented in a way that allows these laws to be complied with, for example by offsetting carbon footprint or by carbon capture.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Parliament passed the budget, not the government.
That is not relevant. If you’d read my post you’d know that.
But I think it is. If Parliament didn’t like it then they could have voted it down. Courts telling Parliament they got it wrong is why we are in a position where the whole concept of Judicial Review is being undermined.
You are not reading any of my posts. Parliament approved of building a runway. They did not approve of building it in such a way that is unlawful. What part of that distinction do you not understand?
It’s the Government that decided to disregard law X and Y. Not Parliament.
By parliament approving its construction surely it is now lawful?
They approved an allocation of money - that’s it.
I think we have reached the limits of what can be gained from this argument. You think that Parliament should be bound by earlier decisions unless It explicitly says not, I think that the act of passing the Bill into law implicitly does the same (or at least should) to prevent some long forgotten Act coming back to prevent Parliament’s will from being enacted.
I can even see some advantages in your version and I am happy to accept that that is the way it currently works. My point, badly put at times I admit, is that making Parliament responsible for its decisions and not the courts is the more democratic course.
But what you say is exactly what happens. New laws overrule existing laws. However if a law does not mention another law that it does not directly overrule, then the previous law also still stands. This is what happened here.
Parliament voted for a scheme to be built. They did not disregard the existing laws on clean air. Therefore the courts *must* (how else are they going to do it?) assume that Parliament intended the scheme to be built with the clean air requirements still in place.
It’s all very well saying “its obvious what Parliament intended” but it isn’t, and there must be an objective way of looking at it, otherwise how will there be any consistency in the law?
I know Heathrow is a particular annoying example, because it is objectively fairly obvious that Parliament approved it being built and didn’t really care about the environmental impact - but judges must go off what the law actually says.
Just strikes me as incompetence in the civil service and/or the Government to be honest.
On that particular example I strongly suspect that Boris would love to see the whole thing quietly dropped as he wasn’t exactly its biggest fan in the first place.
Indeed in the post C19 world I expect the idea of expanding airport capacity will not be popular.
Even if he still wanted to built it, he has a 80 seat majority in Parliament. He could force an amendment through in a day if he wanted to. The courts cannot stop a Government with a parliamentary majority doing anything.
In this case I can’t see it happening.
Can I ask how hard you found your legal studies? You’ve pretty much got the better of me on this one, and I was wondering how much time was spent on the law and how much on how to construct a persuasive argument?
I’m just a bit sick and tired of JR being used as a scapegoat for Governmental laziness or incompetence. They know the courts cant stop them doing anything, so its purely a political tool to further the “people vs the elite” narrative. JR has evolved over hundreds of years and is there for good reason, but it has very little teeth as it is, and is really nothing more than an inconvenience.
I’m enjoying them thank you. The year just gone was mainly about learning what the law is, and how to apply it to various situations and problems. It’s next year where I’ll learn the procedural and vocational side of being a solicitor, although I don’t think I’ll be doing much in the way of persuasion, as I don’t intend to be a barrister.
Interestingly my highest mark was on an essay arguing whether we should have a codified constitution or not.
Good luck: hopefully you end up doing something a bit more interesting than conveyancing!
Thank you very much! I have actually decided that I want to do high-street/transactional work so conveyancing may be what I end up doing! I don’t mind though, I want to work with normal people rather than big business. We’ll see what opportunities arise.
Comments
However, it appears that regardless of the standard, headloops where a requirement of the contract as issued
https://twitter.com/JolyonMaugham/status/1291251935564242944
Are you saying that shouldn’t be judicially review able because Parliament passed a budget?
Passing a budget does not mean Parliament is approving of various laws to be disregarded. If the Government wants various laws not to apply, they should change the law.
You’re suggesting that the Government should just be able to do what they want, regardless of what the law says.
Let’s try a more realistic scenario: a government puts money aside in the budget to build a number of grammar schools, and the bill passes. Would it be reasonable for a Judicial Review to halt them on the grounds that they would discriminate against certain groups?
The problem is we have too many laws, in a difficult to search form, and not even the Government knows what they say.
That is what needs fixing. Not JR.
Remember that the building of a runway and the government’s commitment to climate change and air quality targets are two very different things too. What is wrong with making the Government explicitly exclude these requirements, or are they embarrassed by that fact and are trying to hide from them?
Headline - 5
7 days - 4
Yesterday - 0
Anyone using the last 3-5 days of data..... lawyer, kimono, baseball bat.
I'd actually favour that now tbh.
"We didn't want to do this, but faced with the prospect of a lengthy JR we decided it was the quickest way to get badly needed roads up and running"
"Of course our Gov't is committed to halting climate change via electric cars" and so on
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/08/05/economic-consequences-mr-sunak/
I am much less happy about the prospect of Judicial Review of Acts of Parliament such as budgets.
The Government can’t then turn round and say - “well Parliament actually meant that law Y and Z does not apply”. Can you not see how that is a recipe for disaster? Think about it for a minute FFS.
If the Government wants laws to not apply, they need to say so. They need to get Parliament to pass a bill that says “We build scheme X, disregarding the provisions in law Y and Z”.
Job done.
https://twitter.com/JolyonMaugham/status/1291269891207704576
I expect that the true story is exactly what the last line quoted there says: that at the time you couldn't get masks with behind-head ties for love or money anywhere in the world, so the NHS had to make do with accepting ones with behind-ears ties. Now presumably the supply bottleneck is sorted out, and so they can use the better ones with behind-head ties.
Do you remember the attempt, some years ago, to use judicial review combined with human rights legislation to make changes to pensions and other benefits essentially impossible?
The fundamental difference is that the two systems have been designed with different aims. The Japanese model is about letting people have secure homes - the British model is about letting people have secure house prices.
The British model has seen house prices sky rocket in the last three decades meaning people who own homes have become incredibly wealthy (especially those who own multiple homes) but make it difficult to buy your own home.
The Japanese model has seen house prices fall in real terms over the last three decades meaning people don't have wealth in their homes but they have a home.
I unabashedly prioritise homes over house prices. Houses should be somewhere secure for you to live and everyone should be able to try to own their own home. It shouldn't be a money making scheme. If you want to make money you should be going into work or running a business not becoming a landlord.
Can we - rarely - perhaps agree on this topic?
As for taxes I think a land value tax to replace Council Tax has merit. A tax based on ownership of the undeveloped value of the land - that way people are able to build whatever they want on the land without being punished through taxation and holding onto land without developing it is not rewarded by the taxpayer.
Unless you took a number of printed copies of said link, carefully notarised by lawyers, with date and time etc....
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-73061287.html
The house itself is "only a 4 bed", but there are lots of other rooms. Dedicated Yoga studio (and garden), for example...
It’s the Government that decided to disregard law X and Y. Not Parliament.
The demand for PPE surged worldwide, the government ordered whatever it could get, it was able to get better, so now it no longer needs this shipment. Oh well.
The shipment was ordered in good faith because it would be better than nothing and nothing is what the risk was we were facing. The shipment was delivered in good faith.
I honestly don't see what the big deal is here. Would people prefer there was no PPE available?
*I had to stop myself continuing “in New Orleans”...
The answer is no, they have not.
I don’t understand how you can’t see why they are two separate things? This is a fundamental part of a legal system FFS, and always has been.
I haven’t read the JR case, and to be honest I don’t really want to, so I don’t know the reasons why it succeeded and I doubt you do too.
It was a binary choice - cut corners on the tendering process and order what you can get, or run out of stock in days.
I can even see some advantages in your version and I am happy to accept that that is the way it currently works. My point, badly put at times I admit, is that making Parliament responsible for its decisions and not the courts is the more democratic course.
EG as far as I recall the Human Rights Act explicitly says that it overrides other laws. If a future law explicitly overrides the Human Rights Act then the later law would take precedence (it explicitly overriding the earliers explicit nature) but if it doesn't then the Human Rights Act takes precedence because it says so.
However if there's two bills neither of which say they take precedence it should be the most recent one passed that takes precedence.
😀
On an individual basis then no they didn't but on an aggregate level yes they did. It is intellectually dishonest to look at an individual case and not the aggregate.
Parliament voted for a scheme to be built. They did not disregard the existing laws on clean air. Therefore the courts *must* (how else are they going to do it?) assume that Parliament intended the scheme to be built with the clean air requirements still in place.
It’s all very well saying “its obvious what Parliament intended” but it isn’t, and there must be an objective way of looking at it, otherwise how will there be any consistency in the law?
I know Heathrow is a particular annoying example, because it is objectively fairly obvious that Parliament approved it being built and didn’t really care about the environmental impact - but judges must go off what the law actually says.
Just strikes me as incompetence in the civil service and/or the Government to be honest.
Indeed in the post C19 world I expect the idea of expanding airport capacity will not be popular.
The government is spending hundreds of billions of pounds on this pandemic. Many billions on the PPE. A few hundred million getting wasted on failed PPE is neither here nor there compared to running out of PPE and inflicting billions more of damage on the economy.
If it wasn't for the pandemic then normal tendering rules should apply, but they were explicitly dropped due to the pandemic and as a result things like this happen. C'est la vie, that's why you normally have the normal tendering rules. But wasting money buying something you turn out not to need is better than saving money by not buying something you did need.
I remember one, where a Northern Irish shop fitting contractor built a huge house, where McCloud seemed upset that the whole thing worked out so smoothly.
According to the latest figures, weekly infections have increased tenfold since Spain entered the "new normality," jumping from 1,762 to 18,298.
And, according to The Economist, the northeastern region of Aragón has the highest 14-day cumulative incidence of Covid-19 of any area in Europe
El Pais.
I think if that were the case we'd be talking about that. Foxy certainly would.
If that's the story its far more damning but I think you're pulling that out of your behind.
https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/rishi-sunak-remains-popular-his-handling-coronavirus
The problem is when people think they can spend like this permanently instead of temporarily.
Being too cute before the new ball has shit all over the hard work England did in the morning session.
There’s no reason why you can’t build an airport and continue to comply with the clean air bill, so why would it be overruled, unless Parliament explicitly said so?
We’re not talking about building the airport itself, but the requirements needed to continue to comply with the previous law.
You can’t just arbitrarily decide what laws continue to stand or don’t unless its stated. How would that even work in practice? It doesn’t.
How badly was Aragon affected back in March/April?
Can I ask how hard you found your legal studies? You’ve pretty much got the better of me on this one, and I was wondering how much time was spent on the law and how much on how to construct a persuasive argument?
Apparently there's just enough for now but if we get a major spike/second wave then we're buggered.
https://twitter.com/IpsosMORI/status/1291355480720322560?s=19
What did I do? I put somebody in touch with somebody at PHE who followed it up and which led to a consignment of PPE being acquired and delivered.
But you do agree we should be building up stock for a second wave?
This government on the other hand are majestic in the dark arts. Richard Desmond? Ten grand to the Tory Party and a £50m tax bill avoided. And what of Boris Johnson's "lavender list"? It makes Harold and Marcia's list look like the work of rank amateurs!
I’m enjoying them thank you. The year just gone was mainly about learning what the law is, and how to apply it to various situations and problems. It’s next year where I’ll learn the procedural and vocational side of being a solicitor, although I don’t think I’ll be doing much in the way of persuasion, as I don’t intend to be a barrister.
Interestingly my highest mark was on an essay arguing whether we should have a codified constitution or not.
Now, flying lots of planes off the runway ...
I mean I was under the impression that Parliament had explicitly authorised construction of the runway as proposed. Not simply approved the concept or approved expenditure but explicitly authorised that specific plan.
In which case I'd have thought that plan was authorised and that would by virtue of Parliament's powers override any concerns like the clean air act - since Parliament had authorised this specific plan after that act was authorised.
In which case the clean air law would still apply and could be used for other planning issues not authorised by Parliament.
Does that make any more sense?
I haven’t read the JR case so I don’t know exactly what the grounds were for success.
However I don’t see any reason why on cases like these where the Government suspects that people might try and use JR to delay, they can’t write into the bill that JR does not apply to that particular decision, or something to that effect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46dDvcTXxxo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHuap75z05o