The conservative and religious blogger Archbishop Cranmer has devised a cabinet composed of political bloggers.
It is nominally a "coalition" so there are nods to a leftist like Martin Bright and the liberal right-of-centre writer Nelson Jones.
But mostly it reads like a list of right wing blogging horrors, from James Delingpole to Melanie Phillips.
Astonishingly he added me as Attorney-General.
Someone on Twitter says I should be insulted to be on such a list.
However, I see it as an opportunity.
As chief legal adviser to the Crown, the Attorney-General would be able to issue (unsolicited) advice that every illiberal act proposed by the "cabinet ministers" was unlawful, whether it be under EU, ECHR, international, or the Common Law (in respect of England and Wales).
You may remember Blair's wrangling with Goldsmith over advice that the Iraq War was lawful.
That would be a daily problem for my new illiberal "colleagues".
And they would not easily defy such advice, as it is not really open for Her Majesty's ministers to knowingly act unlawfully.
The Attorney-General also would have legal standing to issue judicial review proceedings each and every time they defied the advice.
It would be in the public interest for me to do so, after all.
And in the event the "cabinet" was able to pass any illiberal measures into domestic criminal law, the Attorney-General can intervene and stop any prosecutions.
So it would be a powerful position to be in, should the country ever be faced with Cranmer's Cabinet of Horrors.
Whatever their illiberal ravings, their actions could ground to a halt.
In the words of my learned friend Walter Joseph Kovacs in the leading text of Watchmen on Watchmen:
"I'm not stuck in here with you, you are all stuck in here with me."
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Friday, 26 August 2011
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12 comments:
Given the make up of that cabinet, which will be inherently fragile due to the number of loose screws, then the relevance of the EU & ECHR will rapidly become irrelevant as one of their first acts will be to leave the former and repeal the latter. As to International law then, apart from what is signed up to be act of parliament it's legally irrelevant (and no doubt any such binding treaties which are inconvenient will be rescinded to). As for common law, what role soes that play in overriding primary legislation?
Steve
The "sovereignty" of Parliament is just a rule of statutory interpretation, subject to fundamental rights in the Common Law.
Or something like that...
The battle over whether parliament or the judiciary have precedence here is an interesting one. There have certainly been times when "fundamental" rights, like habeas corpus, have been suspended, albeit under extreme circumstances.
I doubt this cabinet of loose cannons proposed by an even looser canon would go that far. Some of them are libertarians.
Congratulations on your elevation to this pantheon of the right. Most of whom demonstrate with their blogging no grasp of the most basic of our common laws.
I suspect, however, that your time may be engaged in providing cover to the (thanfkfully fantasy) Minister for Health, who not only displays a lack of understanding of the law, but also a tenuous grasp on the basics of evidence and rationality.
Best of luck!
Not so much a fantasy cabinet, as a cabinet of fantasy, as people like Delingpole, Phillips and Dorries simply live (or at least write) in a world where reality does not exist.
*Shudder* Especially at the way "His Grace" refers to himself by honorific in third person, not a good sign as far as sanity goes... Mr Ramel does not approve.
The inclusion of Bishop Nick Baines is interesting - most definitely not of Cranmer's stripe, and a brilliant reflective blogger.
http://nickbaines.wordpress.com/
J.O.K.; I'm immediately pleased that your instincts would be to use the position you have been 'given' in this horror-story-of-a-cabinet for the benefit of society as a whole and to attempt to mitigate, with extreme prejudice, their worst excesses.
But on second consideration it only makes me wonder why these powers are not and have for the past thirty years not been used in the same manner. In your opinion, is it for just the prosaic reason that the incumbents have been 'captured' by the political processes at work? If so then I submit that the fabled independence of the judiciary is yet another phantasm that must be exposed and rectified before any progress can be made towards a fairer and more just society.
I note that, while you're ready to act on the illiberal, you are silent on the misconceived. Does this indicate a substantive change in your position which, hitherto, has been of implacable opposition to both? If so, I am ready to be appalled at the way you appear to have abandoned principle to further your unworthy political ambitions.
If not, I believe that we deserve an explanation.
Remember that if you constantly gave the "wrong" advice, you would be replaced by someone who didn't!
For every lawyer who says one thing, there is always another who says the exact opposite, it is, after all, the means by which they earn their living, arguing about the law at their clients' expense.
I am afraid that this post exemplifies the sick state in which democracy finds itself in the mind of many "liberal" commentators. "I disagree with policies pursued by the elected branch of Government, so I will use the unelected branch (sc. the judiciary) to stop it." Well, pardon me if that seems a little sick-making.
As to Parliamentary Sovereignty being a mere rule of statutory interpretation: well, that's a very curious statement by an Oxford history graduate: it is the sort of ahistorical gibberish one usually sees spouted by well meaning foreigners like Lord Steyn. Since (1) Parliament can change the common law by statute and (2) statute prevails over common law, then it is obvious that common law imposes no limits on the Sovereignty of Parliament. To hold the contrary, you need to appeal to some mysterious "cardinal law" above, beyond and deeper than the common law: the "deep magic" of C S Lewis's Narnia perhaps. To me as a Eurosceptic, the existence of such a law is appealing, but I see no evidence of it. I would add: (1) "authority" for the limits of Parliamentary sovereignty is found really only in late and non-judicial writings of "Lord" Coke, advanced when he had a politicial axe to grind; (2) those writings are inconsistent with far older constitutional practice (see the sad fate of Sir Robert Tresillian CJ in 1387, after he questoned Parliamentary sovereignty); (3) the ultimate source of common law is unelected and unaccountable judges. Since someone has to be supreme, better a Parliament I can sack.
Looking at that list of bloggers (including my former MP, Paul Goodman), I couldn't help but wonder if this Cranmer chap was taking the piss - he's picked some of the worst thinkers (indeed, some who appear to be barely able to think rationally whatsoever) that I think I've ever come across in the blogosphere.
And then he sticks JoK in as Attourney General? (Trying hard to avoid making JoKer in the pack pun.. and failing) With that bunch of twisters, you'd have a full-time job not so much pointing out where what they want to do is illegal, but how their "facts" aren't; their "evidence" is non-existent and their "solution" wouldn't be.
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