Avoiding a constitutional catastrophe
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Avoiding a constitutional catastrophe
Lord Judge warns against the return of government by proclamation
A former lord chief justice said this week that the United Kingdom would face a “constitutional catastrophe” if governments were permitted to make laws without proper parliamentary scrutiny.
Lord Judge was giving the Selden Society Inns of Court annual history lecture at Middle Temple. He compared the events of 400 years ago with developments today, arguing that “government by proclamation has returned, insidiously, in disguise.
You can read my report and analysis of his lecture in today’s online Law Society Gazette.
Lord Judge has also kindly allowed me to circulate his speaking notes. His lecture was delivered in a slightly more informal style but the text accurately summarises his remarks.
Avoiding a constitutional catastrophe
Perhaps historically lawyers and judges have been partly to blame for having luxuriated in a mystique which they (wrongly) relished so that they could operate on the basis that the poor public they had pledged to support were too ill educated for it to be possible for them to understand legal concepts and so out went the message that the “poor dears” would just have to rely on us to see them right. But of course that has led to that very public resenting and distrusting us and the duty to communicate and explain had from the very start been ours, again collectively.
And so now as I am finding with many of my fellow activists at constituency level they regard my wittering on about the rule of law and due process slipping through our fingers as mere frippery and of little or no relevance to the plight of the average or particularly the disadvantaged cohorts the likes of my own MP and local councillors are there to be fought for.
However, Lord Judge is absolutely right and I suppose I just have to keep trying to convince my fellow door knockers and lobbyists that what may seem to be JUST ( meaning ONLY ) law is all that we have through scrutiny of governmental whim and plain anti democratic mischief to protect quite especially those who are under privileged.