The last four days have seen an unprecedented gathering
of law lords hearing the case brought by Gina Miller and others for the express
purpose of frustrating the UK’s leaving of the European Union. So blatant was
its purpose that in the time honoured manner in which the Prime Minster
declares full support for a minister about to be sacked, their lordships felt
the need to emphasize that this was not a challenge to Brexit, merely a matter
of law. How we laughed!
But seriously, these stalwarts of the legal profession
brought their still incisive minds to bear on the knotty problem of what Parliamentary
sovereignty and representative democracy mean and whether or not the government
should be allowed to govern. Not that this action, in any way, was brought in
order to delay, obfuscate, confound or otherwise jeopardise the smooth progress
towards becoming a self-governing, independent country again.
Oh no, there was never the slightest intention that the
challenge would stir up old enmities, deepen the divided between inners and
outers or in any way lessen the new-found confidence and optimism felt by the
majority who have waited decades for their voices to be heard. Of course not;
what a ridiculous accusation; how could we think such a thing? No, no, no, no...
it was merely to clear up a trifling point of order, that’s all. We know this to
be the absolute unvarnished truth because they felt the need to keep telling us
it was so.
But the glare of the public spotlight is a hard
taskmaster and after four days their lordships – and lady – were glad to bring
proceedings to an end after a mere four days, pull off their support stockings,
slacken their corsets and relax in their private chambers. A small evening
gathering was organised to allow the tribunal to celebrate the end of the
public phase of the process and recover their humanity, let down their hair and
just be themselves.
As always, when much-maligned professionals get together
they feel a clanship and a certain siege mentality about the way they are
viewed by outsiders. Politicians feel unfairly judged by the electorate,
policemen feel unfairly targeted by reformers, doctors feel insufficiently
respected by their patients and philosophers... well they feel, so they are.
The judges quite rightly feel impugned as inhuman automata, pilloried as they
are in the press whenever they set an axe-wielding repeat offender free... for
the third time.
It’s not fair; they are as human as the rest of us. They
get no special privileges, they will plead, and they have to suffer much of
their human indignities, such as growing old, under the harsh gaze of critical observation.
One of the eleven was holding forth about his own travails and declared that, as soon as their judgement was announced
in January he would also announce his retirement. The others protested that,
nay, he was a mere stripling but he would not be dissuaded.
No doubt like me many have pondered the effect of the court's judgement due in January. Up to now my main worry was that if it found against the government apart from that being perverse it would throw Brexit into confusion. Delaying, watering it down considerably or even scuppering it.
ReplyDeleteHowever you brought to my attention a just as important point that it would lead to government's impotency and all that implies. I do not know if the point has been put to the court that parliament does not need the court for it's protection against the executive abusing it's prerogative power as parliament is quite capable of stripping government of it at ant time by the simple expedient of voting that it should. I suspect the reason parliament has never done so only curbing it a bit now and then is because all politicians wish to enjoy the same privilege when their party is in government even if they are not already.