Category: Constitutional Law

The government is looking at judicial review

10th August 2020

What should we make of the government’s announcement of “independent panel to look at judicial review”?

By way of background: judicial review is the general name for how the courts in England and Wales consider the lawfulness of government decision-making and rule-making.

If a government decision or rule has not been made within the legal powers available, or has otherwise been made improperly, the High Court in London can quash that decision or rule.

Governments do not like being told ‘no’ by courts.

 

The announcement and the Terms of Reference

The announcement is a small item on the government website, which in turn links to a one-and-a-half page pdf with the grand title of Terms of Reference for the Independent Review Of Administrative Law.

This title and the Notes helpfully take up the majority of the one-and-a-half pages.

The substance of the Terms of Reference (such as it is) is in four numbered paragraphs, and these four paragraphs have been put in bold – perhaps to make them look more impressive.

 

Priorities

A first thought about this review is that you would think that the Ministry of Justice would have more important things to do.

The ongoing coronavirus emergency means the criminal justice system is beset by backlogs and delays, and the prison system is more dangerous than ever.

But at this time senior ministers and officials at the Ministry of Justice wish to devote their scarce managerial time and resources to this matter.

 

Lack of substance

A second thought is that the announcement and the Terms of Reference are, well, rather flimsy.

The four numbered paragraphs, even when supplemented by the Notes and said in that slow ‘voiceover man’ way as all passages in bold should be, are as general as the author(s) of the document could get away with, short of saying nothing of substance at all.

Even paragraph 4, which is perhaps the most important, is no more than a brief list of discussion points.

The document has an improvised and rushed air to it – the Notes in particular seem to be a late attempt to add some substance.

All this said, there is stuff here which is – or may become – concerning.

 

Paragraph one – codification

The first paragraph is, as a lawyer would say in court, an old chestnut: should judicial review be placed on a statutory footing?

This is an examination essay question of the ages.

And there is no quick or neat way this review, or anyone else, can place judicial review on an entirely statutory basis even if it wanted to do so.

This is not to say there are not already detailed statutory rules.

Judicial review is already heavily regulated by legislation: by the Senior Courts Act and by the (statutory) Civil Procedure Rules.

But the ultimate basis of judicial review is not contained within any Act of Parliament, as it derives from the very jurisdiction of the court itself – and some would say that the supervisory jurisdiction of the High Court is logically prior to, and distinct from, the legislative supremacy of parliament.

To somehow convert this source of law into a statute would no doubt require complex and sophisticated legislation, if it can be done at all – and, unless there is a particular reason to do so, there seems not a lot of point in doing so.

And, there is the ‘hole-in-my-bucket’ problem of how the courts would police compliance with any such new constitutional statute if its power is entirely to be derived from that statute.

Some things are perhaps better left as student essay questions.

 

Paragraphs 2 and 3 – justiciability 

Paragraphs 2 and 3 are impressive in that somebody has somehow managed to make two paragraphs out of one point.

That point is justiciability.

This is about what sort of issues are questions for the court as opposed to, say, Parliament, the government, or the electorate.

The problem here, as with paragraph 1, is circularity.

A question for the court is always a legal one – whether an action (or inaction) is legal or not.

And what sort of issues are legal ones?

The ones that are decided by a court.

If there is to be some statutory definition of what questions are justiciable, then all that may happen is that the legal battleground shifts to litigation about whether that new definition applies.

Courts, contrary to media representations, are already reluctant to the point of unwilling to decide political questions: for example, all the Miller litigation did was ensure that parliament decided certain issues rather than the executive.

Those who sought to use the courts to stop Brexit not only failed but did not even come close to getting any judicial reversal of that political decision.

What we do often get is media and political misinformation about what the courts are doing and not doing.

And the cure for such misinformation about the law is not to change the law.

 

Paragraph 4 – collateral attacks

Paragraph 4 is where this Review may make some difference.

The ultimate basis of judicial review cannot be easily changed, and nor can the need for a court to decide whether a question is a legal one or not.

But – like a participant in ‘Wacky Races’ throwing devices out a car window to snare the car behind – the government can promote rules and procedures that can make access to the courts more difficult.

Here, however, the government probably does not need an independent review to do this: this has pretty much been government policy since the Blair years, with the worst most recent attack on the easy availability of judicial review coming under the Coalition government (and promoted by a Liberal Democrat minister).

You will see unlike paragraphs 2 and 3, where one point is stretched into two, that paragraph 4 has six points – each one of which is a potential pressure point for limiting the flow of justice, just like the body has pressure points to limit the supply of blood or oxygen.

What the government here is seeking to do is reform the practice of judicial review so that it almost impossible to obtain it as a practical remedy.

 

Towards a report and beyond

This review has the whiff of ‘something must be done’ – the government and its advisors do not like judges saying ‘no’ and so something must be done to stop the judges saying ‘no’.

One way judges would be prevented from quashing decisions and rules is for those decisions and rules to made better in the first place.

Any decision or rule in respect of public policy can probably be made by the government through parliament, as long as government and parliament make the decision or rule properly.

The courts can only intervene when there is illegality.

The problem in this age of Brexit and coronavirus is that the government does not want to go through the proper law-making process – it wants to use wide powers, either in emergency or Brexit legislation – and to not have any parliamentary or other check on that power.

This is the executive power project.

Perhaps this review is a clever wheeze by some wise official to delay or deflect the attack on judicial review – by the time the panel reports, things may have ‘moved on’.

But this is probably wishful thinking.

The impulse of some now in and around government for executive power for its own sake will still be there.

And they will not rest until they have done as much as they can to remove any constitutional check or balance to their wish to have, in effect, government by decree.

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Why we should be worried about the use and abuse of statutory instruments

12th June 2020

In a Financial Times video yesterday I set out some particular concerns about the Coronavirus quarantine regulations, and in earlier posts on this blog I have set out the problems with earlier versions of the Coronavirus restrictions on movement.

This post takes a step back from particular regulations to set out briefly why we should be worried about the government’s use and abuse of statutory instruments.

The phrase “statutory instrument” is odd for someone who is neither an official nor a lawyer: instruments in everyday language are tangible things – musical or surgical instruments.

Statutory instruments are not really tangible things (though they can be printed): they are dull-looking and often dense formal documents.

And putting the word “statutory” in front means you also have the sort of legalistic term that for normal people is a prompt for glazing over and switching off.

Yet statutory instruments are – or can be – troubling things.

Why?

Three reasons: legal effect, lack of effective scrutiny, and governmental convenience. 

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First: legal effect.

As the word statutory tells you they are the law of the land, as much as any Act of Parliament.

In constitutional theory, a statutory instrument should be within the parameters of a parent Act of Parliament.

And again in constitutional theory, a statutory instrument can be challenged in court as outside the scope of that parent Act.

But in practice, the provisions of parent Acts can themselves be very wide and the prospect of any court challenge usually unrealistic.

In effect, if not in technical legal form, they are as much primary legislation as any Act.

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Second: lack of effective scrutiny.

Statutory instruments become the law of the land without any scrutiny (or any real scrutiny).

They are difficult to challenge in parliament and impossible to amend.

They either go through on the nod (the affirmative procedure) or without any nods at all (the negative procedure).

And the sheer number of them means that there is no alternative to this lack of real scrutiny.

The purpose of statutory instruments was historically for there to be a flexible way of legislating on technical issues (as envisaged in parent Acts of Parliament) or to place on a domestic legal basis laws agreed elsewhere (for example under the European Communities Act).

Now statutory instruments, other than a nominal and ceremonial moment in parliament, are effectively legislation by government departments.

Constitutional theory holds that that it is the legislature that legislates and the executive that executes, but the reality is that the executive legislates.

Statutory instruments are in effect executive orders by another name.

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Third: governmental convenience.

Once you have a thing that (a) has the same effect as an Act of Parliament and (b) has none of the inconveniences of actually passing an Act of Parliament, you will tend to get abuse.

The government will have every reason to try to use statutory instruments as much as possible and for as many different things.

And so the recent coronavirus regulations have created the widest criminal offences in modern legal history, potentially criminalising everyone the moment they walk out of their home.

They even purported to criminalise what goes on between consenting adults in their own homes.

These regulations were, at least on their face, significant interferences with fundamental rights.

But they were slipped out without formal announcement and had immediate legal effect.

And because they were under the Public Health Act, there was not even any parliamentary stage before they took effect, ceremonial or otherwise.

The fact that the regulations were as ludicrous as they were illiberal is a happy accident.

Their lack of practical enforceability should only be a relief to the constitutionally gullible. 

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We are so familiar with the comforting notions of the British constitution that we are often blind to what happens in practice.

What we now have is legislation, on an industrial scale, from the executive, sometimes casually interfering with fundamental rights.

The government – ministers and officials – are now in the habit of doing this.

And that is why we should be worried about the use and abuse of statutory instruments.

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Why the Attorney General should resign

5th June 2020

On 23 May 2020, the Attorney General for England and Wales tweeted the following tweet.

Note the Twitter account states in the bio that the tweeter is the Attorney General for England and Wales.

That tweet in turn quoted another tweet where a journalist set out a public statement from Number 10, the office of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

The public statement set out a version of the events of the now infamous excursion of the Prime Minister’s adviser Dominic Cummings.

The statement ended, as you will see from the tweet: “Mr Cummings believes he behaved reasonably and legally”.

Note the very last word of the statement is “legally”.

And if there was any doubt, the journalist’s own tweet repeats it: “legally”.

The Attorney General had therefore tweeted that there had been a clarification that, among other things in the statement, Mr Cummings had behaved legally in respect of that excursion.

Of this there can be no serious doubt: it is the natural meaning of what she tweeted.

She may not have intended to do so, and she may not have even read the statement she was endorsing, but that is what she did.

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By way of context, the Attorney General was not the only government minister who tweeted that morning.

Other ministers tweeted about the same time with similar statements quoting the same journalist’s tweet containing the statement.

The impression that gave, of course, was this was a coordinated attempt by ministers to support Mr Cummings in what was then an emerging political scandal.

The problem is that the office of Attorney General is not just another government ministry.

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The office of Attorney General is special.

The Attorney General is the government’s senior legal adviser.

The Attorney General superintends the Crown Prosecution Service.

The Attorney General has a constitutional function as safeguarding the public interest in certain legal cases.

The Attorney General can intervene in private prosecutions and bring them to an end.

The Attorney General also happens to the “leader of the Bar”.

Although the office is held by a politician, the role is to be independent.

(For more on the historic office of Attorney General, click into and read this superb though detailed post by the late Sir Henry Brooke, the former appeals judge.)

One role for the Attorney General therefore is not to make public statements on particular cases, for either political or other reasons.

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Once the tweet was tweeted there was plainly a problem.

It was not the sort of endorsement an Attorney General should be publishing to the world.

Had there been a mistake?

The current Attorney General is new to the office, and although a barrister she is not a senior one.

So perhaps she did not realise what she was doing.

But as she sets out on her own website:

“In 2010, the Attorney General appointed me to the specialist Panel of Treasury Counsel, which meant that I represented Government Departments in Court.”

So even if she did not realise the import of what she was doing, she should have done so.

Nonetheless, the tweet was evidently an error and she could have swiftly apologised, acknowledging that it was a tweet that should not have been sent.

Had she apologised and retracted the statement, few would have pressed the issue further.

But she chose not to apologise.

She chose to do something else instead.

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The shadow Attorney General, rightly, set out his concerns about the matter in a letter.

The Attorney General sent a letter in reply, and is set out in this tweet.

The wording of her letter is strained – and one gets the sense of someone at the Attorney General’s office working hard to word the indefensible.

But it was false of her to state that there was “no question of [her] having offered any public legal view”.

There was more than a “question” of her having done so: she had.

She had publicly endorsed a statement that had expressly described Mr Cummings’ conduct as legal.

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And if the false statement in the letter was not enough, she yesterday repeated the false statement on the floor of the House of Commons.

Please watch this video clip.

https://twitter.com/elliereeves/status/1268574169119285251

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So both in a formal letter to her shadow and in the House of Commons, the Attorney General has falsely maintained that she had not expressed a public legal view on the Cummings case.

This is even though this is directly contradicted by her own tweet.

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This is not just a technical or trivial problem, where the Attorney General erred with a daft tweet.

This goes to the confidence the public can have in the holder of that office having sufficient independence within government.

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There is even the suggestion that her involvement in this particular case went further than a misconceived tweet.

If this is true, then not only did the Attorney General publicly state her legal view on the merits of Mr Cummings’ conduct but also according to a source gave advice to cabinet on the case.

But even if that is not true, her refusal to apologise and retract her public statement endorsing Mr Cummings’ conduct as legal is a serious ground for concern.

And making false statements about whether she had made such a public statement is incompatible with her office.

For these reasons, the appropriate step would be for the current Attorney General to now resign.

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The significant extension of the Coronavirus restriction on movement – and why it is concerning

23rd April 2020

Yesterday, slipped out without formal announcement, was a significant extension in England of the Coronavirus regulations.

The extension was by way of this statutory instrument.

The substance of the extension is an amendment to regulation 6 of the Coronavirus regulations, which I discuss on this blog here.

Before this amendment, the key criminal offence under regulation 6 would be committed when a person left the place where they were living, without reasonable excuse.

That had the merit of legal certainty, but it also created a gap.

What would happen if a person, having had a reasonable excuse to leave the place where they were living, then ceased to have a reasonable excuse?

Under the initial regulations, that would still give rise to a power for an officer to make a reasonable direction that such a person return to where they live, and it would be a criminal offence to breach that direction.

But it would not be a criminal offence in itself to be out without a reasonable excuse, as long as a person had one when they left the place where they were living, as criminal offences are interpreted strictly.

(In practice, this made the evidential burden for the offence difficult, as how could the prosecution show that a person already outside did not leave the place where they were living without a reasonable excuse.)

The new amendment deals with this by simply adding “or be outside of” to the offence, which now reads: 

“During the emergency period, no person may leave or be outside of the place where they are living without reasonable excuse.”

One response to this amendment is fair enough: a technical gap is filled.

(And no doubt some Reply Guy is already typing a comment to that effect for a comment below.)

But.

There are two concerns with this: one formal, and one constitutional.

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The formal problem is that the Home Office officials and lawyers (who are responsible for this part of the regulations, though the Health and Social Care Department are responsible overall for the regulations) have been rather naughty.

This is an extension of the law – but they are pretending it is a “clarification” – and they are doing that for a naughty reason.

It is not a clarification, as it means that a person can now be committing a criminal offence who beforehand would not be committing an offence.

And it is because of the gap such an amendment was necessary.

Yet, in the explanatory note, it is stated:

“Regulation 6 is amended to clarify that under regulation 6(1), the prohibition applies both to leaving the place where a person is living without reasonable excuse, and also to staying outside that place without reasonable excuse.”

This attempt to pass the amendment off as a “clarification” is not just an attempt to save face: the amendment is because there are those who have had penalty notices wrongly imposed, or have even been wrongly arrested, charged and fined, under the previous provision.

And as it is not (normally) lawful to create retrospective offences, the Home Office are passing this off as a clarification and crossing their fingers nobody notices.

An explanatory note, however, is not part of the law, and so it is open to a court to take a different view as to whether previous penalties and so on have been lawfully imposed.

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The constitutional problem – which by itself does not affect the legality of the regulations – is that this significant extension again has had no parliamentary approval.

The headnote of the amendments even says “the Secretary of State is of the opinion that, by reason of urgency, it is necessary to make this instrument without a draft having been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament”.

This is literally incredible: parliament is now back in session, and so there is no good reason whatsoever for the amendments (and the regulations) to avoid having parliamentary approval.

The government – even in an emergency – should not be in the habit of creating or extending criminal offences by ministerial fiat when parliament is sitting.

And what was permissible (perhaps) at the beginning of this health crisis should not become the norm.

None of this is to say that the offences under the regulations are wrong in practice – but democratic approval should be at the heart of such immense restrictions on everyday life, and not an afterthought.

Criminalising otherwise normal social activity should have the greatest possible mandate by parliament before it has effect, not be slipped out with no parliamentary approval at all.

Something worrying is happening here.

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Ultra Virus – the constitutionality and legality of the Coronavirus Regulations

8th April 2020

The Coronavirus Regulations are the law of the land, and as they are the law of the land they must be obeyed, and the reason we have emergency laws is because of emergencies, and this is an emergency.

That sentence is there because there is a sense among some legal commentators that they cannot either comment critically on these regulations or even comment at all, lest some idiot takes the criticism to mean that the laws should not be obeyed.

In my view, however, such quietism and self-censorship may be more irresponsible than any constructive criticism.

At a time of emergency, the scrutiny of emergency laws is vital.

The law still needs to be obeyed when it is in force, even if there are processes for challenging it.

And so it is on this basis that this post sets out the constitutional and legal issues of the Regulations, further to previous posts on this blog (for example here and here).

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One way of critically approaching the Regulations is to look carefully at whether they accord with the parent legislation.

This is because the Regulations are secondary legislation – in this case, a statutory instrument – that only have legal effect (“vires”) to the extent that they are within the scope of the primary legislation, in this case, the Public Health Act 1984.

(Note that although the Act itself was passed in 1984, it has been heavily amended since, and so the relevant provisions for this discussion do not necessarily date back to 1984.)

At the august and influential UK Constitutional Law Blog, the outstanding legal scholar Jeff King has in two posts (here and here) setting out why he sees the Regulations as within the scope of the law.

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Others looking at the detail of the parent legislation take a different view, and they aver that the Regulations may be outside the scope of the parent Act (see here and here).

And Lord Anderson QC, the former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation and an authority on emergency legislation, has also set out his doubts, and concludes (with elegant and careful wording):

“In summary, the impact on personal liberty in Regulation 6 goes right up to the limit of what is permitted under its parent statute, and arguably beyond. An ultra vires challenge would attract strong arguments in both directions. Ultimately, however, a court which is minded to uphold it as valid has, as it seems to me, a plausible legal argument for doing so.”

In other words: there are plausible grounds that a court may quash parts of the Regulations.

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As the head of this post sets out, the Regulations are the law of the land and must be obeyed.

The Regulations (or any part of them) would, however, cease to be the law of the land if a court of competent jurisdiction quashed the Regulations (or any part of them).

The possibility of this does not mean that, in the meantime, the laws cease to have effect – it means that there is a possibility that a court may one day take a different view.

And this is the case with any secondary legislation (and with any government action or inaction).

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So if there is scope for questioning the legality of the Regulations, what can be usefully said about the constitutionality of the Regulations?

In a sense this is a difficult area, as there is no codified constitution in the United Kingdom and to say something is “unconstitutional” is often not to say anything meaningful at all.

But there is a worrying constitutional feature about the Regulations which the approaches set out above, which focus on statutory construction and interpretation, to an extent overlook.

The Regulations have not had any parliamentary scrutiny or sanction.

They were given effect after Parliament was in recess.

The Regulations restrict or remove fundamental rights, including freedom of movement and freedom of association.

The Regulations create wide-ranging criminal offences.

In the two Miller cases, the Supreme Court ruled against two attempts by the United Kingdom government to do drastic things by ministerial fiat – to take the United Kingdom out of the European Union and to close down parliament for five weeks without any reasonable basis.

In both cases the Supreme Court, rightly, decided that something that fundamental should be decided and endorsed by parliament.

In the case of the Regulations, the government could have included the provisions in the Coronavirus Act, but chose not to do so.

And the government could (and, in my view, should) have used the Civil Contingencies Act, which has several built in safeguards and a supervision regime, but again chose not to do so.

Instead, the government chose to use the Public Health Act which even commentators who say that the Regulations are lawful accept is a bit of a shoehorn.

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My view is that they very decision to use the Public Health Act, rather than primary legislation (which parliament would vote on) or the Civil Contingencies Act (which gives parliament a defined supervisory role) is a decision which can be questioned both in terms of its constitutional propriety and indeed its accordance with public law principles.

The Regulations are to be reviewed shortly, and this blog yesterday put forward some modest proposals for taking the illiberal edge off from the provisions.

But there is a more fundamental question of ensuring that legislation that removes or restricts fundamental freedoms has parliamentary (and thereby democratic) approval.

Law not only should have authority – but ultimately also legitimacy.

The Regulations convert almost all normal social behaviour into anti-social behaviour, punishable as criminal offences.

Such upheavals should have democratic sanction, just as any other upheaval like leaving the European Union or closing down parliament.

And it is not “irresponsible” to point this out – indeed, it seems to me irresponsible to pretend this is not of any urgent concern.

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What is the Bindmans challenge to the Coronavirus government guidance about?

3rd April 2020

The law firm Bindmans are bringing a challenge to the government guidance that a person can only leave where they live once a day for exercise and that exercise should be local.

If just reading of such a challenge means you have already formed A Strong Opinion that you now want to type, then this really is not the blogpost for you: other websites are available, and your comment below the line here will not be published.

This post instead sets out the problem and the applicable law, so that you can form a view based on the available information and the applicable law.

As a preliminary point, please note that this is a legal challenge to government guidance – and not to the Coronavirus Regulations themselves.

Formal government guidance – in effect, policy – can be challenged (in general terms) at the High Court if it is contrary to the law, or is unfair, or is disproportionate in its impact.

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According to Bindmans, the relevant facts are as follows:

“[There are] two families with children with autistic spectrum disorder whose conditions necessitate them leaving the house more than once day for their own well-being.

“One child in particular is deliberately taken to a quiet location that is not local to them, because of their particular needs and where there is a far more limited risk of infection than if he were to remain in an urban environment.”

Bindmans then explain the problem:

“The requirement that everyone is now only able to leave once a day (and can only travel locally) makes it very difficult for these families to be able to manage their children’s high needs and promote their well-being, during a time when lots of disabled people are simultaneously struggling with reduced support from external agencies.  

“Keeping them in urban environments also increases the risk of infection of them and others given they are unable to understand social distancing rules.”

Any sensible person reading this would accept that this is a practical problem and, in such circumstances, the parents should be able to take their child to a quiet location.

There would be no direct public health problems in doing so, and the families would comply with the guidance on social distancing – indeed the child is less likely to infect or be infected.

But a sensible view is one thing, what is the legal case?

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Again, the legal challenge is to the guidance not the Regulations.

The guidance is being challenged because, if interpreted and applied by the police to the Regulations, it could lead to the parents facing criminal liability under the Coronavirus Regulations.

What the parents seek to do is, on the face of it, permitted under the letter of the Coronavirus Regulations – but if the police construe the Regulations in accordance with the government guidance then fixed penalty notices, prosecutions, fines, criminal convictions and criminal records could follow.

The solicitors aver that the guidance disproportionately affect fundamental rights :

“The social distancing measures being put in place by Government are clearly important, but they cannot be used to disproportionately interfere in the rights of those with protected characteristics, particularly those with mental illness, autism or similar conditions that necessitate leaving the house more than once per day. 

“Such rights can clearly co-exist with the health measures being put in place and Parliament clearly did not think it necessary to impose the once per day restriction arbitrarily introduced by the Government. 

“It is essential the Government needs to rethink this restrictive policy and allow appropriate flexibility where it is necessary and justified.”

The main legal basis of the challenge seems to be that the guidance contradicts the protections of the Equality Act 2010 (as well as under the Human Rights Act 1998).

Relevant here is that the mental health is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act.

A person protected characteristic has legal protection against direct and indirect discrimination (and the discrimination here would be indirect).

Any such discrimination then is subject to the four stage test under section 19(2) of the Equality Act.  

In particular, are those who are disabled (the term in the statute) placed at a  disadvantage?

There can be no doubt of this.

And so does the guidance go further than is necessary to protect the relevant public policy goal, that here would be the protection of public health in the current coronavirus emergency?

In my view, the guidance is disproportionate in two ways.

First, as long as the affected families comply with social distancing measures, then the public policy goal is unaffected.

And second, there does not need a complete change to the guidance to address this problem, just a further exception for those with relevant physical and mental health issues so they are able to take more exercise and to be travel further than their locality, when necessary.

Such a modified approach would still comply with the Coronavirus Regulations, and it would not affect the position of the greater number of people.

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The government is expected to respond today or tomorrow, and it may be that the government modifies its guidance to address these concerns.

But if the government does not shift its position then the next step would be a formal legal challenge.

The current emergency does not mean that the law of the land has been jettisoned – the EqualityAct and other laws are still in force – and there is certainly nothing wrong with the government being held to account by the courts at this time.

And if those protected by the Equality Act are facing practical discrimination that goes further than the goal of dealing with the current public health emergency, then it is right that their legal rights be protected and enforced.

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The extraordinary legal situation of the Coronavirus lock-down

30th March 2020

There is a public health emergency in England as there is in the rest of the world, and so it is essential that emergency public health laws be in place.

Nothing should gainsay that simple proposition, and nothing in this post should be taken as opposing the imposition of public health law in the current emergency.

That is why emergency public health laws exist.

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Yet, we should take a moment to reflect the extraordinary legal situation that we are now in.

Three fundamental freedoms – freedom of movement, freedom of association and freedom of worship – have all been abolished for six months by a statutory instrument which has been neither scrutinised nor voted on by members of parliament.

The freedom to conduct business or be self-employed also has been either severely curtailed or effectively removed by the same means.

Under Regulation 6(1), it is even now a criminal offence to leave your own home, unless (in effect) the police are satisfied you have a reasonable excuse.

The whole country is thereby (in effect) under house arrest.

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The police, in turn, have been given wide powers to enforce these regulations, including the use of coercive force.

And in turn, again, the police are interpreting these wide powers even more widely, with roadblocks, drones, and a made-up restriction on “essential travel”.

The police are also encouraging people to snitch on each other.

On social media there are accusation and counter-accusation, as neighbours turn on each other.

People are afraid of the police, and increasingly of each other.

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Those with mental health problems, and those in abusive households, are being made to feel that the law means that they have to stay inside.

This is actually not the case at law.

The Regulations provides scope for leaving the house for such important reasons.

One can hardly dare imagine what is now happening behind closed doors, with vulnerable people believing (wrongly) that the law prevents them escaping.

And one must dread the real consequences of this.

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And all this is on top of the fact that all electronic means of us communicating each other are – in principle – subject to interception and surveillance laws.

This means that everything being communicated between citizens – is in principle – open to the government to monitor.

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If it were not for this public health emergency, this situation would be the legal dream of the worst modern tyrant.

Everybody under control, every social movement or association prohibited, every electronic communication subject to surveillance.

This would be an unthinkable legal situation for any free society.

Of course, the public health emergency takes absolute priority.

But we also should not be blind to the costs.

**

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Thinking about emergency legislation

22nd March 2020

The current coronavirus pandemic is a public health emergency and, as with any emergency, there can be the need for emergency legislation.

By definition, there is not often the need for emergency legislation (or, at least, there should not be), and so emergency legislation is not something that often needs to be considered.

Now in the United Kingdom the government is bringing forward emergency legislation.

There is a bill before parliament that will be enacted in days.

And yesterday there was a statutory instrument issued under public health legislation.

Both instruments raise particular issues, but rather than dealing with the detail of the provisions, this post asks what can be usefully said about emergency legislation generally.

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Emergency legislation is, of itself, a good thing.

This may seem trite and obvious, but the existence of emergency legislation means that those responsible for dealing with an emergency are doing so in accordance with the rule of law.

Emergency legislation means that even though there are exceptional and dangerous challenges, the government is still wanting to place their actions on a lawful basis.

And by doing so, it means in turn that in principle those adversely affected by the legislation have (or should have) the ability to challenge decisions made under it – though in practice this may well be difficult.

There may be an emergency, but (at least in theory) the rule of law is still in place.

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Emergency legislation, however, should be exceptional.

This means that once the emergency is over then the legislation should lapse.

It also means that the legislation should not be used for purposes other than dealing with the emergency.

A genuine fear is that emergency legislation, once enacted, is too convenient for a government to then let go.

And for the executive-minded, any emergency – whether regarding terrorism, public health or anything else – can be the pretext for an executive power grab.

Never let a good crisis go to waste, as the saying goes.

But the prospect that the emergency powers can be abused is not a reason for the powers not to granted for their proper purpose.

(The “thin end of the wedge” argument is often a substitute for thought.)

Emergency powers need to be time-limited and subject to judicial review and democratic supervision.

*

Most importantly, emergency legislation also has to be useful.

All because there is an emergency, it does not necessarily follow there is a need for emergency legislation.

The executive already has wide legal powers.

There are already many public health and related statutes.

There is always the risk of a “something must be done” sentiment meaning that emergency legislation is enacted just because something needs to be seen to be done – like an assertion of political virility.

Every piece of emergency legislation should make a difference and be relevant to the emergency faced, as well as going no further than required or lasting longer than is needed.

In other words: emergency legislation should always be necessary and proportionate.

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In technical terms, much emergency legislation falls into two categories:

– first, to provide a legal basis for the government to do a particular thing that it would otherwise not be able to do at law; and

– second, to remove a legal restriction that would otherwise mean the government cannot do a particular thing at law. 

In both situations, the legal status quo may be there for a reason – that parliament and the courts have provided for settled legal arrangements for what can and cannot happen in usual, happier, non-emergency times.

Emergency legislation is thereby a sudden interruption to these settled legal arrangements, for a specific urgent reason.

So when you look at a piece of legislation, you can see clauses that suspend some legal powers and clauses that create other legal powers.

But in both cases the three questions to be asked are the same:

– is that change necessary for the purpose of the particular emergency?

– does that change go further (and last longer) than necessary for this particular emergency?

– what are the safeguards against abuse?

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That the government is bringing forward emergency legislation to deal with an emergency is to be welcomed – for that is why emergency laws exist or should exist.

And a government seeking to enact such legislation should have nothing to fear from anxious scrutiny.

But if there are genuine concerns that the laws are not necessary, or go further or last longer than required, or do not have safeguards against abuse, then those concerns should not be shouted down with “don’t you know there is a virus (or a war) on”.

Emergency legislation is for emergencies only – and proper scrutiny, like the rule of law, should never be suspended.

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Brexit: the end of the beginning

2nd March 2020

If Brexit were a boxset, we are now about the start of season two.

The first season, of course, had a story of its own: a referendum that did not need to be held, leading to a result that was not expected (or anticipated), resulting in a departure on withdrawal terms few positively wanted.

(It is difficult to think that we are still within what would have been the five-year term of the 2015 parliament, where David Cameron had a good Commons majority elected on a manifesto that included a commitment that the United Kingdom be at the heart of the European Union single market.)

Now the United Kingdom is outside the European Union (let alone the single market) as a matter of law, even if the terms of the withdrawal agreement will make it a Brexit in name only until (at least) the end of this year.

Certain elements of the withdrawal agreement – on citizenship, financial contributions, and on a range of technical matters – will endure beyond the transition period.  

Accordingly the threat of “no deal” at the end of this transition period is not as drastic as it would have been had there been no deal for the departure itself.

The scope of issues to be agreed (or at least capable of being agreed) is narrower than before the withdrawal agreement.

What is now to be negotiated (or not) is the future relationship beyond the end of the transition agreement.

One way of following this is by the heady heated excitement of political commentary, where one can form two different views a day (or an hour, if you are on Twitter) on any relevant issue.

And the politics of Brexit are crucial – it is only by understanding the politics of Brexit that you will understand why otherwise incomprehensible decisions are taken and daft unsustainable positions adopted.

But politics is not the only way of understanding Brexit – and a politics-only approach is itself limited and will miss many things.

For along with the pomp and propaganda, there is process.

And the process is about arriving (if possible) at an agreed text.

And a process which is intended to end with an agreed text tends, if the parties are taking it seriously, with a number of preliminary texts.

And it is by having regard to the texts and the process that one can (often) understand where Brexit is going and not going.

Again – form and structure are not everything – but they can provide the situations against which politicians and the media then react.

The two key texts for this negotiation are the negotiation guidelines of the European Union and the United Kingdom’s Command Paper on the those negotiations.

Of course, these are opening positions – but this does not mean they are trivial and can be dismissed.

On the European Union side especially, thought will have gone into what they want to achieve in the final text, and the guidelines will have been compiled by thinking backwards from what they want to achieve with that final text.

And in respect of the withdrawal agreement, early texts of the European Union can be seen as leading directly to final positions.

Remember: this is not the European Union’s first rodeo: they have the valuable experience of negotiations over Grexit, and of association agreements and free trade agreements.

This does not mean they are always right, or that that they will prevail, but to the extent that experience provides an advantage, the European Union will have the benefit.

Against this process-minded approach, there will be the temptation for those supporting the United Kingdom government to adopt again the bluster and silliness that was a feature of the exit negotiations.

Given the membership of the cabinet, that is a real risk.

So it is a relief that the United Kingdom’s Command Paper on the upcoming negotiations is a serious and not a silly document.

And with the two parties prepared (if unevenly) for the negotiations, and as both parties want an agreement (if possible), the second season of the Brexit boxset can begin.

It may well be that the second season will be yet more exciting (and scary) then the first season – but at least we (and the parties) will be ware of how the first season went.

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The moral hazard of the United Kingdom casually breaching the Political Declaration

27th February 2020

The Political Declaration is a formal, negotiated document agreed between the United Kingdom and the European Union.

You can see the document here, hosted on the United Kingdom’s own website – all 31 pages of detailed prose, over 141 numbered paragraphs.

It is a serious document, to be taken seriously.

The United Kingdom government says itself on its website:

“The new Political Declaration sets out the framework for the future relationship between the European Union and the United Kingdom and reflects the Government’s ambition to conclude an ambitious, broad, deep and flexible partnership across trade and economic cooperation with the EU, with a free trade agreement with the EU at its core, alongside agreements on security and other areas of cooperation.”

The Political Declaration, however, is not legally binding.

And there is now a suggestion that the United Kingdom government can and should disregard the commitments set out in the Political Declaration.

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There have been, broadly, two responses to the United Kingdom government apparent desire to breach the terms of the Political Declaration.

The first is first is to say that as the Political Declaration is not binding then it does not matter if it is breached, casually or otherwise.

The second is to say that the Political Declaration is a formal and negotiated document, and that it does matter if it is breached.

These two views appear to be be in conflict to the point of contradiction.  

And if they are in conflict then the question becomes which is the better view.

The two responses are not actually in conflict as they are dealing with different things: there is therefore no hard contradiction.

But the better view is that the Political Declaration should be taken seriously – even if it is not binding.

Indeed, that the Political Declaration is not binding makes it more important that the government takes it seriously.

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What does it mean for a formal commitment to be “binding”?

Not all formally negotiated documents are (legally) “binding” – so what is it which gives them this quality.

In general terms “binding” means that there are formal sanctions available in the event of the breach.

These sanctions may not necessarily require the party in breach to specifically perform the commitment.

The sanction may be that the other party can terminate the agreement, or that there is some remedy or benefit for the other party.

But whatever the sanction, the notion is that the agreed commitment can be enforced against the party in breach so that the other party does not suffer the disadvantage of the breach.

Making a commitment (legally) binding is one way of showing that the party undertaking the commitment is being serious.

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In foreign affairs and international politics, however, a preoccupation with whether a formal serious commitment is “binding” or not is in good part a legalistic red herring.

A serious formal commitment is intended to be taken seriously and formally: that is its very point.

And this is regardless of whether it is technically “binding”.

Resiling from an obligation on the technicality that it is not legally binding is not to take such a commitment seriously.

(A useful comparator are the United Kingdom’s pre-Brexit financial commitments to the European Union – there were question marks over whether they were legally binding – how could they be litigated? which court? – but this was not the point: the United Kingdom had made a commitment and was expected to stick to it.)

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All this said, there may be a good reason for a country to depart from a formal serious undertaking.

And both the United Kingdom and the European Union knew that the Political Declaration was not (legally) enforceable.

Both sides accepted it could and would be departed from, in certain circumstances.

The crucial question would be: how and on what basis?

And in this way, the Political Declaration is, in effect, a test for a post-Brexit United Kingdom.

How seriously does the United Kingdom take non-binding commitments and assurances?

Do the words matter?

The less seriously the United Kingdom takes non-binding commitments, the stronger the signal to the European Union that anything important needs to be tied down in strict legal provisions.

This is why the daft posturing of the United Kingdom about casually breaking the the Political Declaration matters.

It matters as much, if not more, than if the Political Declaration was “binding”.

In effect: the Unite Kingdom is sending a signal of “don’t trust us, insist on strict legal obligations”.

And this signal is not just being sent to European Union – the signal is now being broadcast to every nation in world, to all the countries where, post-Brexit, United Kingdom may want to have “trade agreements”.

The United Kingdom may think it is saying to EU “screw you” but in fact it is telling the world “screw us”.

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Brexit was an opportunity for the United Kingdom to show the world how serious it was about having an independent trade policy.

Instead, the United Kingdom keeps showing the world how lacking in seriousness it is in entering international commitments

One day this lesson of moral hazard will be learned – if not by current ministers then it will be understood by future ones.

But that may be too late, as something important will already have been lost, and it will be hard to regain.

The United Kingdom government is still not taking Brexit seriously.

**

Thank you for visiting this law and policy blog.

I am hoping to spend less time on Twitter in 2020 as I want to move back into longer-form writing – in particular, examining and commenting on key texts and other developments.

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