UK General Election

[baron]

So far there is no sign in view that the Brexit has any hane to prove a success...

I think it will, despite the puerile nonsense that is currently passing for politics.

On the contrary the more it goes the more it looks that nobody in the UK really knows how to handle this.

Right now it does not look that way...

If BREXIT is a success then by his own reasoning, this would happen. I don't think it will happen this way, but I don't see the EU surviving for more than a generation.

 

[ddt]

Explained here.

Acts of Parliament, as we were taught by the venerable Dicey, are the highest form of law, within the hierarchy of sources of the law of England. However, none of them, according to his thinking, enjoyed a higher legal status than any other. Influenced by the legal philosopher John Austin’s views on the nature of sovereignty, Dicey regarded it as impossible for the legislative authority of Parliament to be limited by preceding Acts: “That Parliaments have more than once intended and endeavoured to pass Acts which should tie the hands of their successors is certain, but the endeavour has always ended in failure,” he wrote (Law of the Constitution, p.65). Dismissing what may have been thought of as one contender for higher status with a degree of mockery, he argued that “neither the Act of Union with Scotland nor the Dentists Act 1878 has more claim than the other to be considered a supreme law".​

Dicey lived long enough, by the way, to see the establishment of the Irish Free State, and the enfranchisement of women, both of which he deprecated very strongly. The Act of Union - Scots tend to call it the Treaty of Union - is still there.

I am unaware of the current status of the Dentists Act 1878.
ETA. I looked it up. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Dental_Association. Fascinating.

That clearly explains why Brits have bad teeth: nobody ascribes constitutional status to the Dentists Act.

However, it's not really an answer to (part of) my puzzlement. Parliament ratifies an international treaty. That means that Parliament intends to honour that treaty. Why, then, does the treaty also have to be explicitly incorporated into domestic law (requiring another vote by Parliament) in order to be enforceable in court? That seems a case of redundancy to me.

That's apart from the question whether such a treaty then would take precedence over domestic law.

 

[Aber]

However, it's not really an answer to (part of) my puzzlement. Parliament ratifies an international treaty. That means that Parliament intends to honour that treaty. Why, then, does the treaty also have to be explicitly incorporated into domestic law (requiring another vote by Parliament) in order to be enforceable in court? That seems a case of redundancy to me.

That's apart from the question whether such a treaty then would take precedence over domestic law.

This should help:

http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN05855

The starting point for treaty ratification in the UK is that the Government has the power to make international treaties under its prerogative powers. But this cannot automatically change domestic law or rights, and it cannot make major changes to the UK’s constitutional arrangements without Parliamentary authority.

 

[ddt]

This should help:

http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN05855

Thank you! So I was mistaken to think that Parliament ratifies treaties. It gets the chance, within a 21-day window, to ask for discussion about the treaty, and then it gets ratified by the Government if Parliament has not resolved it should not be ratified.

Then it makes sense, at least from Parliament's perspective. Less so from the Government's perspective: signing and ratifying a treaty with clear domestic effect without transforming it into domestic law (for nearly 50 years), is, in modern terms "virtue signalling". Without the European Court of Human Rights enforcing it, the Convention would not have had any effect at all on British citizens.

That clears up the question from other posters why you'd need a court "above" the UK Supreme Court.

 

[Aber]

Thank you! So I was mistaken to think that Parliament ratifies treaties. It gets the chance, within a 21-day window, to ask for discussion about the treaty, and then it gets ratified by the Government if Parliament has not resolved it should not be ratified.

Then it makes sense, at least from Parliament's perspective. Less so from the Government's perspective: signing and ratifying a treaty with clear domestic effect without transforming it into domestic law (for nearly 50 years), is, in modern terms "virtue signalling". Without the European Court of Human Rights enforcing it, the Convention would not have had any effect at all on British citizens.

That clears up the question from other posters why you'd need a court "above" the UK Supreme Court.

Incorporating into domestic law has caused some issues in the UK given the basic constitutional presumption that Parliament can do anything it likes.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Reports tonight of more Tory election fraud. Same old Tories, always cheating.

 

[GlennB]

Reports tonight of more Tory election fraud. Same old Tories, always cheating.

Allegedly masquerading as an independent call centre while allegedly canvassing with a pro-Tory message.

The Graundian