27th June 2022
Just a brief post here today, as I am currently writing one of my longer posts for (I hope) posting on this blog later in the week.
Over at Al Jazeera, I have written again from a liberal constitutionalist perspective for an international audience.
My piece there this week is on the significance of last week’s by-elections – and why, generally, by-elections and other ‘mid-term’ events can be constitutionally significant, even if they are not good predictions of general election results.
And this is because in the British constitution it is common for Prime Ministers to either gain or lose power between general elections (or both) – as this blog has set out previously.
Over at Prospect I have done a comment piece on the new ‘Bill of Rights’ – focusing on its pointlessness but also emphasising that it shows the wrong priorities for the Ministry of Justice, a small department with a limited budget.
Today, criminal barristers are on strike – as the criminal justice system is in an ongoing crisis.
For the current Lord Chancellor to prioritise this ‘Bill of Rights’ above everything else at the Ministry of Justice is a serious error.
So, as my Prospect piece concludes, this bill is the legislative equivalent of lounging on a beach while Afghanistan falls.
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“For the current Lord Chancellor to prioritise this ‘Bill of Rights’ above everything else at the Ministry of Justice is a serious error.”
I suspect this is taking us in the general direction of Occam’s Razor:-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor
There are several reasons why the Lord Chancellor might prioritise the revised ‘Bill of Rights’ over everything else (such as fair pay for legal professionals), no undue delays for justice, fair and transparent sentencing, prompt, thorough and transparent investigations of miscarriages of justice, etc., etc.
1. The Lord Chancellor is “tone deaf” – either accidentally or intentionally myopic to other potentially more urgent matters…
2. The Lord Chancellor has legitimate, high-priority reasons for prioritising this work above all others, but has elected not to disclose them…
3. The Lord Chancellor is in this matter acting as directed by the Prime Minister, who has reasons of his own to set the priority…
4. The Lord Chancellor sincerely believes that revisions to the HRA are a priority item that needs to be addressed first, perhaps in so concluding also illustrating a certain lack of:-
a. Situational Awareness
b. Competence for Office…
5. The Lord Chancellor has elected to prioritise this on the belief that this is deemed as a priority by political supporters (traditional Conservative voters) and is therefore shamelessly enacting a party political policy…
Now, Occam’s Razor is a pretty useful tool when it comes to eliminating some of the options here. For example, Option 2 would seem unlikely on the grounds that if one had a good reason for doing something which looks blatantly odd on the face of it, we would reasonably expect one to make mention of the same.
The problems start after we divest ourselves of the obvious non-starter, mainly because none of the remaining options could be described as a “good look” for the PMs leading legal adjutant.
The fact that there *isn’t* an obvious, rational explanation is the sort of thing that should give us all reason for concern.
Or if it is the second possibility, then perhaps Raab could reassure the UK public by describing it in terms of the notorious South Sea prospect:
“A new Bill of Rights for advancing a National Undertaking of Great Advantage, but nobody to know what it is.”
The Minister for Brexit Opportunities might also like to borrow this phrasing to win over the remaining stick-in-the-mud types.
I try to resist snark for snark’s sake, but sometimes it speaks the truth plainly:
> … the current Lord Chancellor … is a serious error.
(slightly more substantial: having boggled at The Secret Barrister’s description today of the state of the UK courts and the bare-faced lying of the UK govt on this topic, it seems that the catch-cry “the cruelty is the point” makes as much sense of their behaviour as any attempt to describe it as the rational pursuit of the nation’s best interests)
“For the current Lord Chancellor to prioritise this ‘Bill of Rights’ above everything else at the Ministry of Justice is a serious error.”
I rather fear that while this statement is entirely correct and rational the reality that the Barbarians have not only breached the gates but occupy the high castle.
History teaches that after the Normans won at Hastings the native English aristocracy expected that as per usual for the times that they and the highly developed English state would be left in place just with a new king taking his cut. They were soon disabused of this notion when William wiped them and their whole system of government off the board and replaced them with his own men.
Since becoming Justice Sec and Lord Chancellor Raab has only ever shown contempt for the legal profession & courts and in my opinion we all need to realise that Brexit was just but one part of a revolutionary campaign for root & branch overhaul of every aspect of the UK right down to breaking the complex constitutional status of the UK Union and ramming all 4 countries together as a unitary state under a mighty central and British (English really) government.
We see this now in the NIPB which has been driven by British Nationalism far more than Ulster Unionists who have merely provided the excuse for the British Nationalists. The NIPB is nothing less than an attempt at a constitutional coup overturning the self governing status of NI as laid down in the 1920 and 1998 Acts – it’s replete with Henry VIII clause powers allowing British (English) ministers to impose British (English) law and court rulings on NI.
Make no mistake, to Raab and his Britannia Unchained fellow revolutionaries passing the HRA is a top priority. I’m sure Raab also has plans for dealing with the Court backlog and barristers pay and conditions- plans that the legal profession won’t like one bit but with Johnson in office you won’t be able to stop them as Johnson is their perfect man.
The Volksgerichtshof established in Germany in 1934 may serve as a role model for a truly efficient system untrammeled by the bric-à-brac of legal purism. Quoth Wikipedia: “trials were concluded in less than an hour without evidence being presented or arguments made by either side. The president of the court often acted as prosecutor, denouncing defendants, then pronouncing his verdict and sentence without objection from defense counsel, who usually remained silent throughout. The court almost always sided with the prosecution, to the point that, from 1943 on, being brought before it was tantamount to a death sentence.”
Of course for Britannia Unchained some tweaks to the model may be required. It may well be that the role of the president of the court could be filled by the Lord Chancellor himself, since this blog already noted his form in correcting the errors of the legal profession: https://davidallengreen.com/2022/05/the-lord-chancellors-extraordinary-tweet-about-the-tracey-connelly-case/
Public Order Bill: Cruella Braverman and the rewriting of the Human Rights.
How do you like these apples?:
Greenpeace:
” Serious Disruption Prevention Orders (SDPOs). These are a kind of protest ASBO (Anti-Social Behaviour Order) which could block people from demonstrating and dictate where they can go and who they can see in their daily lives.
Worryingly, you could be given a SPDO without actually having done anything disruptive – only that you “might” have caused serious disruption. These laws don’t belong in a free and democratic society…
https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/why-you-should-be-worried-about-the-new-policing-bill/
https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/about-greenpeace/how-we-create-change/