UK: Senior judges fear that a succession of recent laws pushed through by the government could fetter their ability to administer justice and to act as a check on the executive.In a rare series of interviews, five judges in the high court and court of appeal have said their concerns about laws on sentencing, control orders for terror suspects, and public inquiries, which they see as attempts to limit their role.
Their worries at apparent attempts to marginalise the judges are echoed by other senior legal figures, including the former master of the rolls, [Ruling Class] Lord Donaldson.
Several, including [Ruling Class] Lord Donaldson, say the country came close to a constitutional crisis, with some senior judges tempted to defy the will of parliament, when the government proposed an "ouster clause" barring the courts from ruling on the legality of asylum and immigration decisions.
The plan was abandoned in March 2004 after an outcry from lawyers and a threat by the former Labour lord chancellor, Lord Irvine, to break the silence he has maintained since he lost his job in June 2003 to speak against it.
Lord Donaldson said, "Derry Irvine put his foot down implicitly and they abandoned that.
"Had they successfully pursued the ouster clause then we certainly should have been in a very interesting constitutional crisis. If they really did that - and people like James Mackay [the former Tory lord chancellor] thought as a matter of wording it was wholly effective and stopped up every loophole - we would simply have to say: 'We [the judges] are an independent estate of the realm and it's not open to the legislature to put us out of business. And so we shall simply ignore your ouster clause.'"
One appeal court judge said: "The ouster clause I thought was an outrage - the idea that they should actually spell out that the court would have no power to decide on questions of legality. I'm not aware of that ever happening before."
He acknowledged that abuse of the appeals system in immigration was "a scandal" which needed tackling, but described the ouster clause as "a complete overreaction".
Laws which concern the judges include:
- the recently implemented Criminal Justice Act 2003, which imposes mandatory and minimum sentences, reducing the judges' discretion to fit the punishment to the individual case;
- the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, which allows the home secretary to restrict individuals' liberty on suspicion of involvement in terrorist activities, with minimal oversight by the judges;
- the Inquiries Act 2005, which restricts the independence of judges appointed to chair inquiries, allowing ministers to decide what evidence is given in public and to block the disclosure of evidence.
[Ruling Class] Lord Saville, the law lord chairing the Bloody Sunday inquiry, has written to the constitutional affairs minister, [Ruling Class] Lady Ashton, that the Inquiries Act "makes a very serious inroad into the independence of any inquiry and is likely to damage or destroy public confidence in the inquiry and its findings".
The judges, speaking on condition of anonymity, fear the Criminal Justice Act 2003 could lead to an explosion in the prison population and that mandatory measures could force them to impose sentences which are unfair in all the circumstances of the case.
They blame the determination of successive home secretaries, from the Tories' Michael Howard to Labour's David Blunkett, to appear "tough on crime". One appeal court judge noted: "One does have a bit of wriggle room, and I suspect what's going to happen is the judges are going to interpret the wriggle room a bit more widely than the government would like."
Another said: "While the judges will be courageous in standing up for individual rights and civil liberties in the way they did in the Belmarsh case, it is dangerous for the judges to get too far out of step with public opinion.
"It has to be pointed out to the public that these quite draconian measures [control orders] apply to them - not just to bad people but to everybody.
"They may think that the government will only apply them to bad people but there is a risk that they will be applied to cases where they're not justified."
A high court judge added: "I think the executive takes too much power in relation to terrorism and in relation to shutting people up without trial."
By Clare Dyer posted 27 April 05
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It is up to ordinary people to raise the level of debate about the undemocratic surveillance practices of the many faceless and unaccountable agents who make daily intrusions on individual privacy, and about the apologists and propagandists for the War nn Terror who applaud every new attack on human rights and freedoms as "prudent" or "necessary". If there is no discussion of reverse surveillance in the national media, create it on the streets on a citizen to citizen basis. If nobody is talking about the outrageous assaults on privacy and human rights embodied in the new antiterrorist acts forced through US, UK and Australian legislatures, start talking about it to your neighbours and friends.
2nd Renaissance -15 The Rabbits And The Wolves [180]
Historically, there have been periods when legal distinctions between animals and humans have been blurred. For instance, in medieval Europe, in the 14th and 15th centuries, numerous trials and executions of animals occurred. One source identifies 34 recorded instances of pigs having been tried and cruelly put to death. Besides pigs; rats, chickens, goats, and bees were similarly tried. Some of the pigs were fully dressed in human clothes at the time they were, inevitably, found guilty. In one case a vicar excommunicated a flock of sparrows that infested his church. All this happened despite the theological stance that animals had no soul, and no morals or conscience. They could not really be guilty of transgressing the Rule of Law.
