Tag: accountability
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Andrii Koshman: Judicial Accountability in the Digital Justice System of Tomorrow
In 2018, Sir Ernest Ryder warned that the future shift to online dispute resolution for most, and in some areas all disputes, risks eroding judicial accountability and fostering a democratic deficit. The pandemic, the £1.3 billion court modernisation program and six years later, the future of resolving the majority of disputes online appears to be…
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Conor McCormick: A law officer log: Recent developments concerning the office of Attorney General and its equivalents
Today marks the publication of my book on The Constitutional Legitimacy of Law Officers in the United Kingdom, which contains a detailed analysis of the functions exercised by each law officer in the UK and a conceptual analysis of their constitutional legitimacy. In this contribution, I offer some thoughts on the timeliness of the book and…
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Aradhya Sethiya: The party has just begun: The Party Leader and the UK constitution
The looming uncertainty around Johnson’s term in office is not just a perfect setting for political intrigue, but may also have something to offer to students of constitutional law. It should draw our attention to one of the fundamental questions of the UK constitutional process – how should we choose or remove a Prime Minister between general…
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Chris Monaghan: Reimagining impeachment: A new blueprint for our challenging times
Henry Dundas, the first Viscount Melville (1742-1811), holds an infamous place in British constitutional history: he was the last person to be impeached. His acquittal by the House of Lords in 1806 marked the beginning of what has become a long pause in the use of an impeachment procedure against politicians or public officials. The…
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Ben Yong: Exposing the hidden wiring of Parliament
‘Who runs the House?’ While most people were watching the Johnson government stumble from one crisis to another in early December 2021, peers in the House of Lords repeatedly asked this question in a rare debate on House governance. How the House of Lords (and Parliament as a whole) is run and the arrangements underpinning that…
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Joe Tomlinson: Government as Skunk Works
The legislative programme of this Government has—unsurprisingly, given its widely stated reformist ambitions—attracted close attention from those interested in constitutional matters. Several bills have been introduced into this Parliament that have (rightly) been the subject of extensive commentary and interest in this respect, including the Judicial Review and Courts Bill, the Dissolution and Calling of…
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Ronan Cormacain: Unaccountability – The Disease within Government
Pierre Janelle diagnosed the root cause of The Catholic Reformation as “anarchy the disease within the church”. It is my contention that unaccountability is the disease within Government and the root cause of many of its shortcomings today. Unaccountability means the reluctance of the Government to be held to account by Parliament, the courts, constitutional…
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Rodney Brazier: Contempt for the Constitution?
The Speaker speaks On 30 September the Speaker made a formal statement excoriating the Government. He told the Commons that Ministers had shown “a total disregard” for the House when using their powers to make delegated legislation under the Coronavirus Act 2020. Having set out his reasons, he ended by saying that he looked “to…
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Leah Trueblood: ‘Following the Science:’ a Legal and Democratic Challenge
During a pandemic, it seems like a good idea for politicians to ‘follow the science.’ But what does this actually mean? The claim that the Government is ‘following the science’ is in many respects laudable, but is it also a convenient way to avoid or limit accountability? Due to a lack of transparency, it is…
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Mike Gordon: Dominic Cummings and the Accountability of Special Advisers
It is far from new for the conduct of Dominic Cummings to be a matter of political controversy. The man who is Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s current chief adviser was the Campaign Director of Vote Leave during the 2016 Brexit referendum, an organisation which was subsequently investigated by the Electoral Commission and fined for breaking…