….if you win, of course:
First prize will win a meeting with Lady Simler, a tour of the Court, and a UK Supreme Court coffee table book, and a certificate signed by Lady Simler.
Second price will be two meetings…..
….if you win, of course:
First prize will win a meeting with Lady Simler, a tour of the Court, and a UK Supreme Court coffee table book, and a certificate signed by Lady Simler.
Second price will be two meetings…..
“As the Supreme Court approaches its 15th anniversary, what reflections would you offer on its role and achievements?”
Cambyses II did nothing wrong.
@Steve I’m more of a fan of Vlad Tepes in this case, but hey…
UK legal services have a turnover approaching 40 billion. Part of that is overseas earning. The rest is sucked out of the pockets of people in the UK. The more courts, enquiries, legislation etc. we have the richer the lawyers become at our expense. The UK Supreme Court like the EICR is just another revenue earning tier in the court system.
I repeat my proposal that the Supreme Court be relocated to somewhere whence you can see all four countries of the UK. High in Cumberland or Galloway would do the trick.
(I don’t know whether you can see N Ireland from Snowdonia but you can see Galloway.)
You’re reminding me of the Australian High Court ruling that the states having separate goods and services taxes was a breach of the Constitutions’ banning of restraints on interstate trade.
So since they all depended on this, Johnny Howard had the Commonwealth introduce one and divide the loot up among all the states.
You’ve guessed that what pissed me off is that good old Bjelke had abolished Queenslands’ GST at the time. Haven’t you?
The Supreme Court is the greatest assault on our constitution since joining the European project. We’re all taught that since the Glorious Revolution, sovereignty resides with the King in Parliament. Except since 2005 it hasn’t, has it? A gang of judges can tell His Majesty that he’s not allowed to give his gracious consent to Acts of Parliament. The Court is Supreme; it is sovereign. Even the devolved assemblies are subsidiary to Parliament and are forms of parliament in themselves (the Scotch one even claims to be a parliament, but we’ll leave that argument for another time).
Now, its architects will say that it’s just a rearranging of the deckchairs, that the Law Lords, who were no more elected than the justices, could do much the same. Which is arguable, but true or not, they did it in Parliament. Perhaps the way it was done could, or should, have been reformed, but this was not the way to do it if we wanted to retain our constitutional settlement.
Sam: I assume it was dim little Mr Blair’s way of proving how “modern” he was.
He seemed to identify modernity with bits and bobs of US or EU habits. Did I say I always thought him dim?
And ill-educated. Whatever you may say about Brown he almost certainly got a better schooling on the north bank of the Firth of Forth than Blair got on the south. And when he was in his twenties Brown was clearly an able chap – I don’t suppose anyone ever said that of Blair.
@Sam Duncan the Supreme Court would never interfere with Parliamentary processes, nor could they.