Utopia, you are standing in it!

In R (Miller) and Others v The Prime Minister (hereinafter Miller No.2), the High Court of England and Wales found that the decision of the Prime Minister to advise the Queen to prorogue parliament was non-justiciable. In doing so, the judgment reveals the propensity of the judiciary to be much more protective of its own empire than that of the legislature. Ultimately, however, it is an approach that undermines both due to the creation of a legal black hole.

Legal holes and Miller No.2

Legal black holes are zones formally created by law within which, no recourse to the law can be made. A legal black hole is thus created when there is no legal control on the body exercising the power in question, leaving the decision-maker free to exercise their absolute discretion. At best, all the judiciary can ask is whether the legal black hole was validly created…

I’ve been in Rome the past few days with my charming and beautiful daughter.

We visited the usual tourists spots, including the Coliseum and other remnants of Ancient Rome.

And I couldn’t help but wonder how such a powerful empire could collapse, driving people from relative prosperity to the economic misery of the Dark Ages.

I briefly addressed this topic in early 2016, but only to make a point about the (myriad) problems of modern Italy.

So let’s take a closer look at this issue and learn how excessive government helped bring down the Roman Empire.

The Foundation for Economic Education has an excerpt of Will Durant’s book, The Story of Civilization, Vol. 3: Caesar and Christ. And here are my excerpts from that article.

Diocletian, with his aides, faced the problems of economic decay. …he substituted a managed economy for the law of supply and…

Constitutional lawyers often point to key cases as milestones in public law. Recently, the Supreme Court decision in Privacy International joined the ranks of leading public law cases, adding to the cases discussing ouster clauses and the extent to which courts can review decisions of inferior courts and tribunals in Anisminic and Cart. As Privacy International also demonstrated, milestone cases often take on a life of their own. The judges in Anisminic may be surprised at how the case was later interpreted. But this is how the common law works. Anisminic was interpreted in a series of later cases to demonstrate that all legal errors are jurisdictional errors. This then became part of the common law.

CCSU (or the GCHQ case) has long been regarded as a milestone case regarding judicial control over prerogative powers. In R (Miller) v Prime Minister, (Miller 2) the High Court…

Actor Felicity Huffman, who pleaded guilty in the college-admissions scandal, was sentenced today to 14 days in jail beginning October 25, along with a $30,000 fine, 250 hours of community service and one year supervised release.

Although this was a compromise between the jail time her own lawyers wanted (none) and what the prosecution requested (a month in stir), the fine is actually $10,000 higher than the $20K asked for by both sides. The prosecution had also asked for a year’s probation, while her lawyers asked for 250 hours of community service.  It looks as if the prosecution got more of what it wanted than did the defense. And I think the sentence is about right, for it shows that nobody, now matter how rich and famous, is above the law.

As CNN reports,

Federal court Judge Indira Talwani said she thinks Felicity Huffman’s punishment is “the right sentence here.”

She…

SNOWFALL will become “A very rare and exciting event…
Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.”
Dr David Viner – Senior scientist, climatic research unit (CRU)

“Good bye winter. Never again snow?” Spiegel (2000)

“Milder winter temperatures will decrease heavy snowstorms” IPCC (2001)

“End of Snow?” NYTimes (2014)

“Good bye winter. Never again snow?” Spiegel (2000)

•••

FROM a previous ‘conclusion’ about snow, comes a natural introduction…

LISTEN to what the ‘experts’ promised you back then. Because, if they got it wrong then, how can you trust what they are foretelling today or tomorrow? The answer is you cannot, because they have no idea what long-range conditions Mother Nature is going to serve up in such a “chaotic” and complex system as our climate.

AND, most importantly, does the CSIRO and “97% of all climate experts” still stand by their “end of snow” predictions? Or is…

The Fixed-term Parliaments Act has come in for a lot of criticism of late, but is it as badly designed and drafted as some commentators would have us believe? The House of Lords Constitution Committee recently commenced an inquiry into the effectiveness of the Act to seek answers to this question. Robert Hazell and Nabila Roukhamieh-McKinna explain the background to the inquiry, and some of the key issues being addressed.

Background

With perfect timing, the House of Lords Constitution Committee announced on 25 July, the day after Boris Johnson became Prime Minister, that they planned to conduct an inquiry into the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 (FTPA). With even more exquisite timing, the Committee held their first evidence session on 4 September, the day that Johnson tried but failed to persuade the House of Commons to vote for an early general election under section 2(1) of the Act. Robert Hazell gave…

This is an “oldie but goodie”. One can always count on Dr. Thomas Sowell to make sense. I wish it were a characteristic more widely available. We could surely use more of it around in these perilous days.

I did not watch the debate tonight. I am tired of this whole bunch who are vying to see who can offer the best thing to buy the peoples’ votes. Did anyone watch the whole thing?

I’ve seen lots of comments, which only make me glad I did not watch. Best analysis was from John Hinderaker at PowerLine blog.

1) Joe Biden was the winner tonight. He pretended to be sane, and did a decent imitation.

2) Julian Castro–did anyone remember that he was on the stage?–is running to be Elizabeth Warren’s VP. He did her dirty work tonight.

3) It’s time to pull the plug on Bernie Sanders. It’s not just that he is a raving maniac–he is an extremely elderly raving maniac. I hope he made it through the night.

4) Early on in the campaign, I thought Kamala Harris had a good shot. I was wrong.

5)…

Introduction: extension and the Rule of Law

On 9 September, the EU (Withdrawal) (No.2) Act 2019 (‘Benn-Burt Extension Act’) received Royal Assent.  The Benn-Burt Extension Act imposes a statutory duty upon the Prime Minister (if the relevant conditions are met) to request and accept an extension of the withdrawal negotiating period under Article 50(3) TEU.  However, the Prime Minister has repeatedly stated that he will not request such an extension, ostensibly in clear conflict with the statutory obligations in the Act.

This reticence has prompted criticism over the Government’s commitment to the Rule of Law, and has given rise to speculation as to whether the obligations of the Benn-Burt Extension Act can be circumvented legally.  The Foreign Secretary has even stated that the Government will ‘test the law to the limit’.  Boris Johnson faces a trilemma: (1) avoiding an extension to Article 50; (2) remaining Prime Minister; and (3) not…

The death of Hamas-affiliated Palestinian terrorist Bassam as-Sayeh, 47, in an Israeli prison last Sunday received a considerable amount of attention from Arabic-language Western media outlets, which are often quite eager to amplify Palestinian Authority propaganda when dealing with such matters.

Having learned that as-Sayeh died of cancer, the outlets (AFP on Sep. 9, Independent Arabia on Sep. 9 and Sky News Arabia on Sep. 8) uncritically quoted Palestinian officials who leveled allegations at “the Occupation” (i.e, Israel) for “medical negligence”, “withholding treatment” and engaging in a “slow-motion execution” – though without providing any evidence of such conduct.

Even more telling was the fact that all three outlets ignored as-Sayeh’s conviction in an Israeli court for a series of terrorist acts, the most significant being his role in the murder of Eitam and Na’ama Henkin in October 2015.

Rabbi Eitam and Naama Henkin (Photo courtesy of…

This post follows on from a previous piece where I attempted to set out the general rules, and a flowchart, to create a route map in the event of a vote of no confidence. This post seeks to address the narrower question of what could happen if the Prime Minister (‘PM’) refused to send the letter to extend the Article 50 process and instead decided to announce the resignation of the Government before the deadline. This post assumes that the resignation would be by the whole Government on the grounds that collective responsibility on its central policy would apply in all the circumstances.

The deadline for sending the letter under the Benn-Burt Bill (now European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019 (‘EUW2’)) is 19 October 2019 which is a Saturday.

It is a convention that prime ministers should, where possible, give sufficient notice of their resignation so that an…