The Spider, aka Lady Hale, thanks be no longer presiding over the UK Supreme Court…
…left the position with a rant against any move to instal democratic checks and balances to check abuse of power by rogue judges – or as she puts it, ‘any attempt by the government to “politicise” the appointment of judges.’
Ask any Brit exactly how judges are currently appointed and you’ll be lucky to get anything like a clear answer, or any answer at all.
…
.
..
It’s an arcane system, kept behind closed doors, with no input at all from the people on whom the judges impose their verdicts.
The verdicts, the sentences, handed down by the wigged wallies…
…some might say the wicked wallies –
…frequently defy sane people’s understanding…
…
In September 2018 a thug who battered a woman with a bicycle lock leaving her with permanent facial scarring was spared jail and ordered to pay her just £115 in compensation. Angelo Ornelas, 34, confronted Susan Nottage as she walked through Kennington Park in south London with her boyfriend on September 13, 2016….Judge Silas Reid sentenced Ornelas to five months imprisonment – suspended for 12 months and ordered to pay £115 in compensation to Ms Nottage.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7805873/Extinction-Rebellion-protestors-glued-Docklands-Light-Railway-train-guilty.html
….and are also often an affront to any kind of morality.
.
Clearly the system currently in operation is pernicious.
But…
“We don’t want to be politicised,” said Baroness Hale...
I bet you don’t.
The idea that judicial nominees might be subjected to public scrutiny…
.
..
..by the people’s elected representatives?
That must terrify her.
“We don’t decide political questions, we decide legal questions. And in any event, parliament always has the last word.”
Oh!
I understood that the – equally un-elected – tyrannical robed twats in Strasbourg and Luxembourg have for some many years now had the last word.
.
.
And while the authority of the ECJ may, or may not, be phased out in the coming years, no such deliverance from the degenerates of the ECHR is expected, unless Boris Johnson changes his mind about continuing to kow-tow.
We’ll see!
But reform at home is urgent.
The American system is far from perfect – the crucifixion of Robert Bork was a shameful thing, and the attempted but happily unsuccessful subversion..
.
========
….of excellent nominees like Bret Kavanaugh and previously Clarence Thomas, by dirty smear campaigns, were not pleasant.
But all those confirmation dramas were played out in public, with elected senators having their say and thus answerable for the appointments to the people.
Far better than a system that lets curious characters, like those mentioned above, gain enormous power with no democratic mandate!
PS – Further to writing the above, I was pleased to hear more influential voices than mine raised for reform!
Michael Howard is no hero of mine but he carries weight in high places.
He said judges were invited by parliament under the Human Rights Act to “enter the political arena”, including by considering whether “measures that parliament had taken to deal with a particular problem were proportionate to the objectives they wanted to achieve”.
Yes.
When wise people hear the words ‘human rights,’ best reach for bug-spray!
One could say the same for the word ‘spider!’
“Sometimes in order to reach the result they want to achieve, they … distort the meaning of the act of parliament of which they are interpreting.” https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/dec/28/michael-howard-claims-judges-distorted-law-in-prorogation-ruling
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Delise W 04:12 on October 17, 2022 Permalink |
Yes, I never understand why they don’t do that.
The louts might get bored if they keep losing pieces of their dkin .
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