UK Govt Power Grab?

[Tyre Tread]

Is this for real? Boris and Co trying to give the Government the power to overturn or strike out judicial rulings?

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-p...

If it is then the potential consequences are dire IMHO.

Petition against it here: https://www.change.org/p/halt-the-government-power...

[Dingu]

Not that surprising considering the government and senior civil service already appear to consider themselves above the law.

[TooLateForAName]

Yep.

Have a read of the policing bill and the elections bill while you're at it.

Democracy is not in a good way in the uk.

[Grrbang]

I have been grateful for the House of Lords these past few years, and hopefully they will continue to knock these types of bills back.

[Chrisgr31]

Grrbang said:

I have been grateful for the House of Lords these past few years, and hopefully they will continue to knock these types of bills back.

Which is ironic at a time when people suggest we should have a purely elected second chamber. That appears to give the danger they wouldnt be knocking these bills back.

[Grrbang]

Chrisgr31 said:

Which is ironic at a time when people suggest we should have a purely elected second chamber. That appears to give the danger they wouldnt be knocking these bills back.

Absolutely.

Even with many honours being given in a partisan way, there is very little to whip them into line which makes it less of a problem in my book. Baroness Warsi being the obvious example. The government would have to completely stuff it with idealogues to influence the balance much.

[Murph7355]

Couldn't read the whole article....I think these moves were inevitable to an extent. Things like prorog', which IMO was all about a very ill-defined parliamentary process, I think need to be looked at more carefully about where they can be taken. Other things? Depends what they are....

[Eric Mc]

TooLateForAName said:

Yep.

Have a read of the policing bill and the elections bill while you're at it.

Democracy is not in a good way in the uk.

Nothing new. There has been a relentless creeping of more and more power accrued to government since at least the mid 1990s. You should see all the additional powers HMRC has compared to 30 years ago.

[bmwmike]

TooLateForAName said:

Yep.

Have a read of the policing bill and the elections bill while you're at it.

Democracy is not in a good way in the uk.

Agree. Ironically the "democratic" vote of 2016 and the ensuing populist chaos has a lot to answer for.

[ant1973]

I don't think it's quite as controversial as you might think. The government can overturn any judicial decision by primary legislation anyway. As long as it's not retrospective, then introducing an interpretation bill is consistent with what they can do anyway.

A bigger issue is whether we should have a more formal separation of powers and a constitution which is essentially sovereign. I would certainly favour that.

[GroundZero]

As mentioned by Eric, government power grabs seem to have been happening for successive governments for decades.
There is a constantly growing mindset within the ruling elite that they need to keep gaining more elements of dictatorial control over people's everyday lives and decisions. This mindset also seems to be working its way down through businesses and institutions as well, and we now also have 'joe public' often with the mindset that they 'need' to be told how to perform everyday activities and decision making by some level of authoritative power.

The amount of new legislation that keeps entering UK law, when existing legislation would more than suffice is a worrying sign that the size of government and their over-creep in to removing freedoms and decisions from everyday situations, where in the past it would often fall to "personal responsibility", is showing that big-government is having to keep "making noise" only for the only purpose of keeping government 'big'.

[Jasandjules]

Yup a very worrying trend on the part of this Govt.

[JagLover]

ant1973 said:

I don't think it's quite as controversial as you might think. The government can overturn any judicial decision by primary legislation anyway. As long as it's not retrospective, then introducing an interpretation bill is consistent with what they can do anyway.

Indeed

It seems to be people reacting to the headline and not the detail. Ministers will not be able to overrule the courts. They will be able to introduce legislation to be voted on by parliament. The only difference seems to be that instead of changing what the law says it will be clarifying what parliament meant by a particular law.

[mike74]

We've not had a Democracy for a long, long time... what we have is Corporatocracy with a dash of Kleptocracy thrown in for good measure.

The only meaningless sham of democratic process we have is getting to vote for which ever self enriching empty suit of the Banks, the Corps and the Establishment we'd like to tell us what to do.. PM in waiting Dishi Rishi being the perfect example of that.

Cue the usual predictable responses from the scared, unthinkingly compliant, sheep who'll be along along shortly to tell me how wrong I am....

[Eric Mc]

Does it need clarifying? In my experience, most legislation is left deliberately less than crystal clear because it allows legal argument in court if needed.

Creating new law when previous law is sufficient is the epitome of government over-reach.

[GroundZero]

Eric Mc said:

Does it need clarifying? In my experience, most legislation is left deliberately less than crystal clear because it allows legal argument in court if needed.

Creating new law when previous law is sufficient is the epitome of government over-reach.

Agree with that, but what is it is the case that judges may be becoming political on their decisions rather than independent actors on interpreting a case? I'm just speculating, but if so, there may be a need to restrict grey areas of interpretation to better align with the intention of the bill as it was passed in parliament?
Its swings and roundabouts to an extent, keeping out government overreach or keeping out political agendas from judges.

[JagLover]

GroundZero said:

Agree with that, but what is it is the case that judges may be becoming political on their decisions rather than independent actors on interpreting a case? I'm just speculating, but if so, there may be a need to restrict grey areas of interpretation to better align with the intention of the bill as it was passed in parliament?
Its swings and roundabouts to an extent, keeping out government overreach or keeping out political agendas from judges.

The people responsible for setting laws should be those we can vote for.

Judges are there to say if a law has been broken and often can bring their own interpretation of the law to that role. If parliament disagrees with that interpretation then their view should take precedence as they are the ones responsible for making the law and the ones we get to vote for.

That should remain the principle regardless of whether Judges are viewed to be impartial or not. We don't get to vote for them, so their interpretation should not take precedence.

[oyster]

GroundZero said:

As mentioned by Eric, government power grabs seem to have been happening for successive governments for decades.
There is a constantly growing mindset within the ruling elite that they need to keep gaining more elements of dictatorial control over people's everyday lives and decisions. This mindset also seems to be working its way down through businesses and institutions as well, and we now also have 'joe public' often with the mindset that they 'need' to be told how to perform everyday activities and decision making by some level of authoritative power.

The amount of new legislation that keeps entering UK law, when existing legislation would more than suffice is a worrying sign that the size of government and their over-creep in to removing freedoms and decisions from everyday situations, where in the past it would often fall to "personal responsibility", is showing that big-government is having to keep "making noise" only for the only purpose of keeping government 'big'.

Is it really government driving this? Or is it the increasing noise from the public that 'something must be done' and hence politicians just jump on that populist bandwagon?

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Nobody piped up with "but Labour would have grabbed even more power".

This place is slipping.

[Unknown_User]

Tyre Tread said:

Is this for real? Boris and Co trying to give the Government the power to overturn or strike out judicial rulings?

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-p...

If it is then the potential consequences are dire IMHO.

Petition against it here: https://www.change.org/p/halt-the-government-power...

This is very very concerning, thank you for bringing it to our attention.