B
Boris
- Thread starter Harry Stottle
- Start date
Muzungu
Screwfix Select
But the supreme court were careful to specifically state that they did not make any judgement as to what was going through his mind. They made it very clear in their ruling that they were not doing that.
Quote: “We are not concerned with the prime minister’s motive in doing what he did,”
D
Deleted member 11267
Guest
They will be concerned though, that the right amount was placed into the new secret swiss bank accounts opened on behalf of each of them.
The Postman must have delivered the new account numbers yesterday morning, before they announced the paid for verdict.
Muzungu
Screwfix Select
By who?
D
Deleted member 11267
Guest
It would hardly be secret would it, if it was published ?
There are lots of people who do not want Democracy carried out, the eu being one who would lose 39 billion if we just left.
You have also got to remember, it was a nasty piece of work and a proven liar who set up the supreme court, the same person who twice promised us a referendum on europe, and should be in jail as a war criminal.
With that type of background it does not paint or give the supreme court a very good image.
So then if I understand you correctly, we should not be having anymore referendums about anything, we can also do away with general elections and let perhaps an unelected panel of elitists decide what’s best for the population ?
Muzungu
Screwfix Select
So what you are saying is that all the supreme court justices were bribed, possibly by the EU? Are you serious?
Hans_25
Screwfix Select
You clearly don't understand me correctly, no idea how you came to that conclusion.
Hans_25
Screwfix Select
Indeed, crazy isn't it. I shudder to compreend some peoples inability to see more than one extreme viewpoint.
Harry Stottle
Screwfix Select
So why did other judges disagree? We have to accept for the sake of civilisation, what judges decide, but that does not make them perfect arbiters, neither does it make them immune from criticism. To say that their verdict is nothing to do with brexit is difficult to believe, they well knew that their verdict could influence the brexit outcome. If, giving them the benefit of the doubt, they had to reach the conclusion that looked at in isolation prorogation was unlawful, then so be it, but they can't get away with maintaining that it had nothing to do with brexit. To maintain credibility in the eyes of the common man they should have admitted that the verdict could have that effect.
Muzungu
Screwfix Select
But that is where, in my opinion, the common man is making the mistake as to the judgement. The judgement has to be seen to be only on a point of law, nothing else. If the judgement then compromises the Brexit outcome, one way or another, that has to be seen to be independent of their ruling. Lady Hale made that clear as did other judges repeatedly during the ruling. In fact one of the judges during the hearing had pretty harsh words to say of one of the barristers when he started making statements as to the negative impact of Brexit; he was told in no uncertain terms that this was not what the judges were ruling on.
There is a certain irony in Johnson claiming that prorogation was nothing to do with Brexit and then complaining about it, as with others in his cabinet, in relation to Brexit.
D
Deleted member 11267
Guest
Bribed or not, they certainly are biased against us getting out of the eu, and have obviously been told the result to deliver.
How can this unelected panel of judges say that the prorogue was illegal, when one of the people bringing the case had prorogued parliament, to cover up bribery, fraud and conspiracy to hide the cash for questions scandal.
This judgement was completely wrong, especially from the past record of one of the europhiles bringing the case, he should have been charged with conspiracy to cover up fraud, when he prorogued parliament.
The unelected judges are in someones pocket or at their beck and call, the judgement was a complete fix.
DIY0001
Active Member
You seem to be suggesting that the SC has applied double standards. If so, the judgement itself is null and void.
1. It isn't lawful for PM to take an action because it will affect something other than his stated intent.
2. It is perfectly lawful for the SC to make a judgement even though that will affect something other than its stated intent.
So, nobody is above the law except those who decide it.
Last edited:
Muzungu
Screwfix Select
Neither 1 nor 2 had any relevance at all to the judgement. The simplest way to see what the judgement was is to read it and you will then see, hopefully, what the law lords were getting at. It was the actions of the Prime Minister that was judged unlawful, not his intent, in fact the law lords stated explicitly (I think I have mentioned this before) that they would not be making any assumptions on his motives and his intentions were not given to the court.
This is where some people are just not getting it, in my opinion. The judgement was about the unjustified (because no reasons were given) prorogation not Brexit. I can see why the misunderstanding arises because we are all so fixated on Brexit that everything is seen in that context; the law lords had to rise above this and state what in their opinion was the unlawful prorogation of parliament for no reason. It was remarkable that no witness statement was provided by the Prime Minister.
Useful extracts as follows:
"It had the effect of frustrating or preventing the ability of parliament to carry out its constitutional functions without reasonable justification."
and in addition the Prime Minister gave no reasons for doing so:
"No justification for taking action with such an extreme effect has been put before the court."
longboat
Screwfix Select
Have you read it?
I only ask because these 'extracts' that you've provided:
They don't exist within the full SC's documentation regarding this case,(perhaps they are within the summary?) so you cannot have extracted them from such.
I suggest you read the full version, which is available in PDF, to see that the true intent of this judgement has EVERYTHING to do with Brexit.
S
Stumpy Bollingrew
Guest
But Boris said prorogation was nothing to do with brexit and was about the Queens speech
DIY0001
Active Member
No relevance?
1 was the alleged justification for the judgement.
2 WAS the judgement!
Double standards. Nobody is above the law except those who decide it.
Muzungu
Screwfix Select
The quotes come from the summary judgement.
You say the full judgement has everything to do with Brexit. Just to be clear from those who have not read the full judgement, Brexit is not mentioned as far as I remember (I am sure you will put me right if I am wrong as I don't intend to read it again). You are making an inference from the judgement that it is "all about Brexit", I do not make that inference. Now you could argue that the judgement may have an influence on the Prime Minister's strategy for delivering Brexit, in that I would agree you but at the same time arguing that the judgment was not in itself about Brexit. There is no change in what I have previously said, more a clarification I think.
My personal opinion on Brexit, that I have not yet given, is that it will be a mistake and I am easy with anything that frustrates it. I am happy with how things are going, it looks very much like the end result will be either another referendum, when the first result will be overturned, or a watering down of a hard Brexit to the point where we may as well stay in. I can't say I am hugely excited about whatever happens and am watching this more in the way of it being a superior soap opera.
B
Bill Bog
Guest
Muzungu was good enough to post the comments from the summary to make his case. Could you please do the same for your 'brexit' case if you are convinced that it's in there?
andyscotland
Active Member
No, nobody is above the law, including those who decide it.
The short answer is to your points is:
1. It isn't lawful for PM to take an action because it will affect something other than his stated intent and because he has not given any good reason why he couldn't have taken different actions that would not have had those side-effects
2. It is perfectly lawful for the SC to make a judgement even though that will affect something other than its stated intent because there are good reasons why the legal principle is more important than the side-effects of this specific case
The longer answer is:
Boris refused to give any justification for why he needed so long to prepare a Queen's speech, which normally takes 4-6 days. His argument was basically that the PM had directly inherited the Queen / King's old power to send Parliament home whenever he felt like it, for however long he wanted, without explaining himself to anyone.
This power is not explicitly defined in UK law. Of course, Boris could have asked Parliament to pass a law to define it. Or to pass a law to send themselves home for a bit. If he'd put that through Parliament, and the MPs had accepted it, then the supreme court would have had to dismiss the case immediately. The supreme court can overrule the government, but they cannot overrule Parliament.
If the law is clear, and does not conflict with other laws that Parliament has also passed, the courts do not have the power to disagree with it. Nor do they have power to make laws of their own. Indeed, in some contentious cases you'll often see a judgement along the lines that they really think it's unfair that they have to find the person guilty (or whatever) and urging Parliament to consider changing the law.
But Boris didn't ask Parliament for permission. And nor has anybody in the past. And so the court had to take a view on whether he had the power he claimed he did, and whether there were any limits to that.
This is, of course, the exact reason we have judges - particularly at the supreme court level. It's often the case that situations may or may not be legal depending on how you interpret the wording of a particular law. Or that they fit one law but appear to contravene another. Or that a particular situation is perhaps covered by "common law" - principles that were established long ago by courts or royalty, such as not murdering people, and that therefore nobody in modern times has ever bothered to write down.
When that happens, it's the job of judges to consider the case and decide what the law is. They look at what Parliament was trying to achieve when it wrote any particular legislation. They look at (and generally have to follow) the decisions of judges on similar cases throughout history. They consider whether any common law is still valid, or whether it has been changed by written laws that have been passed by Parliament. They examine all the facts that are presented to them. And they try to find the most logical application of the law (in all its forms) to each case.
In this case, the key point is the overarching principle of our entire system of government is that Parliament, not the Prime Minister, is in charge. The Prime Minister is not a President. We don't directly get to vote for the Government. We vote for our local member of Parliament, and they then appoint the PM. We've seen that in action very recently, when May resigned and the MPs appointed Boris. He then went on to appoint an almost-completely-new government, with a number of fairly radically different policy objectives to the ones that were in the Conservative manifesto at the last election. Nobody in the country got a say in that, bar the handful of Conservative party members who were consulted because the Conservative party chose, for itself, to give their members a say. In other historical cases, Parliament has just appointed a new PM without even going back to their party members.
The principle that Parliament is the government's boss is fairly well established in written-down law, and is the reason we get to call ourselves a democracy.
It logically follows that it would be ludicrous if the Government had an unlimited power to send Parliament - its boss - home and do whatever it fancies behind closed doors. Just because the King could do that in the past if he wanted a wee break from democracy, doesn't mean Boris can do it now. The supreme court therefore found that - as with many of the old Royal powers - it could only be used where there was a good justification. And Boris didn't bother to try to provide one.
This is vastly more important than Brexit. The arguments in court about "What if the PM prorogued for a year, then, would that be OK?" weren't just legal exaggeration. The government asked the court to decide that the PM's power was unlimited and not something the courts could interfere with. If the judges had gone down that road, it would have effectively have created a law that any subsequent case - no matter how long the prorogation was for - would have had to follow.
In general, when countries have gone from democracy to something darker, it has been made possible by gradual moves to increase the power of the government and reduce the power of elected representatives. I am not saying Boris, or any of our current MPs, wants to become a dictator. But it's a simple fact that the freedoms we take for granted in this country depend on the rule of law and the constitutional principle that the King/Queen/Prime Minister don't have unlimited powers, but have instead to get Parliament - as the elected representatives of the people - to agree to their plans. And that if you start to weaken that, you start to lay very dangerous ground that others could abuse in future.
That is why the judges could not have ruled anything other than they did, even though it has the side effect of complicating Boris' plans.