Tag: parliamentary privilege
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Richard Mackenzie-Gray Scott: Rebalancing upstream and downstream scrutiny of government during national emergencies
Scrutiny comes in many forms, which can lead to many outcomes. Public scrutiny of Government is one such form, which is an element of democratic governance that aligns with the rule of law. Yet those experiencing and observing the ongoing administration of life in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic might be forgiven for arriving…
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Tom Hickey: The weakening of parliamentary immunity by the Irish Supreme Court
In 2019, the Irish Supreme Court decided two cases concerning speech in parliament. The same seven judges sat in each case. The seven agreed in each case: Frank Clarke, the chief justice, wrote a single judgment for the Court each time. The applicant won in the first case, decided in late February. The Supreme Court…
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Anne Twomey: Article 9 of the Bill of Rights 1688 and Its Application to Prorogation
In the wake of Miller (No 2), it has been contended in the media that prorogation ‘has always been treated as a “proceeding in Parliament”’ and hence protected from judicial review by article 9 of the Bill of Rights 1688. The allegation is that in Miller (No 2), the Supreme Court overturned over 300 years…
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Jack Simson Caird: The Supreme Court and Parliament: The Constitutional Status of Checks and Balances
There have been two competing visions of the constitution battling it out since the Brexit referendum in 2016, which David Howarth described on this blog as the Whitehall view and the Westminster view. The Whitehall view is that the UK constitution, and the relationship between Parliament and Government in particular, is designed to allow the…
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Sam Fowles: Cherry/Miller: What’s Next?
Yesterday the Supreme Court handed down its unanimous judgement in Cherry and Others v The Advocate General and Miller v the Prime Minister. The court found that the Prime Minister’s decision to prorogue parliament was unlawful and, consequently, null and void. This article aims to identify some of the immediate constitutional and political impacts of…
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Robert Craig: The Peter Hain Case: The Effect of Article IX
Peter Hain’s decision to breach an interim injunction granted by the Court of Appeal in the case of ABC v Telegraph Media Group has caused serious concern. It is one of the cardinal rules in Parliament that members should not interfere in ongoing legal proceedings and Hain did not wait until the end of the…
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Jelena Gligorijevic: Breaching Injunctions in Parliament: An Unconstitutional Abuse of Parliamentary Privilege
Two days after the Court of Appeal granted an interim injunction restraining reportage of harassment allegations against a high-profile businessman (ABC v Telegraph Media Group Ltd [2018] EWCA Civ 2329), Lord Hain named the individual involved, in the House of Lords under parliamentary privilege. This enabled the media to identify him in their reporting on…
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Kenneth Campbell QC: Wightman v Secretary of State: Article 50 and Parliamentary Privilege
Introductory Litigation about Brexit continues to throw light on constitutional principles, both new and well-established. In the case of Wightman & others, petitioners [2018] CSOH 61, advised on 8 June 2018, the Court of Session was called upon to consider whether the UK’s Article 50 notification could be unilaterally revoked by the UK in good…
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Andrew Geddis: “Declarations of Inconsistency” under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990
As in the United Kingdom, the question of whether prisoners should be permitted to vote has generated considerable constitutional interest for New Zealand. Largely that is due to the efforts of a long term prisoner and “jailhouse lawyer”, Arthur Taylor, who has mounted something of a one-man campaign against 2010 legislation that stripped the right to vote…
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Alexander Horne: Evidence under oath, perjury and parliamentary privilege
The issue of select committee powers has received renewed interest during the 2010-15 Parliament, culminating in a report from Liaison Committee on Select committee effectiveness, resources and powers (in October 2012); and, subsequently, a report by the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege in July 2013 (and a Government response later that year). Although parliamentary select…