Utopia, you are standing in it!

Dame Anne Salmond, a Distinguished Professor in anthropology at the University of Auckland and 2013 New Zealander of the Year, had good advice for the Ardern government in an article on the Three Waters plan and The Treaty.

She was writing about the comprehensive Three Waters reform and the manner in which it is being imposed on local authorities, making nonsense of any notion they and the citizenry are being consulted.

This must be an opportunity for listening, not for a government imposing its view of water as ‘assets’, she urged in an article which concluded:

“In dealing with the Three Waters debate, the Sixth Labour Government should learn from the mistakes of the Fourth, and not try to operate by executive fiat.

“Democracy is too precious to be set aside, even by those with the best of intentions; and waterways are not ‘assets,’ but the lifeblood of the land.”

The Government explains its Proposals in its Human Rights Act Reform: A Modern Bill Of Rights: A consultation to reform the Human Rights Act 1998 (CP 588), which represent a radical departure from the HRA. The specific Proposals are developed in the context of broader themes:

• respecting our common law traditions and strengthening the role of the UK Supreme Court;
• restoring a sharper focus on protecting fundamental rights;
• preventing the incremental expansion of rights without proper democratic oversight;
• emphasising the role of responsibilities within the human rights framework; and
• facilitating consideration of and dialogue with Strasbourg, while guaranteeing Parliament its proper role.

The Government’s Proposals are designed to recast the HRA profoundly. They seek to create a framework for human rights which focuses principally on British law rather than ECtHR judgments and propose that the UK courts should give greater weight to the views of Parliament. The most important proposed…

Introduction

The Nationality and Borders Bill (NABB) proposes controversial amendments to the UK’s citizenship deprivation power under s. 40 British Nationality Act 1981 (BNA). The Home Secretary seeks a power to dispense with the requirement to give notice of deprivation decisions to those affected, in an act of “striking back” (Harlow and Rawlings at Chamberlain J’s decision in D4 v SSHD. This post aims to analyse Clause 9 NABB from a comparative perspective, drawing on the provisions for depriving citizenship without notice in Australia’s Australian Citizenship Act 2007 (ACA) and New Zealand’s Citizenship Act 1977 (CA). It argues that, although Australia and New Zealand have similar powers to withhold/dispense with notice, the proposed UK power would be broader and more draconian, yet subject to fewer constitutional control mechanisms.

Sheppelle, considering a “forensic legal analytical framework” to assess constitutional changes, argues that “[t]he only way we can tell…

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 last time that events got anywhere near interrupting this long pause came in 2004 when a number of MPs, including our present Prime Minister Boris Johnson, sought to impeach Tony Blair over the invasion of Iraq. The impeachment motion was co-drafted by experienced MPs and placed on the House of Common’s order paper, though proceeded no further (for the motion and background see J Simson Caird, ‘Impeachment’ House of Commons Briefing Paper).

But could it be that the turbulence of recent years when there have been many complaints about the government’s disrespect for accepted…

The new year calls for a new blog series, so throughout 2022 we’re taking a closer look at some of the figures who held the post of Speaker of the House of Commons. Today we hear from Dr Kathryn Rix, assistant editor of our Commons 1832-1868 project, who explores the career of J E Denison, Speaker from 1857-72.

On 8 April 1857 John Evelyn Denison was in the library at his Nottinghamshire residence, Ossington Hall, when he received a letter from the prime minister.

My dear Denison,

We wish to be allowed to propose you for the Speakership of the House of Commons. Will you agree?

Yours sincerely,

Palmerston

Lord Palmerston to J. E. Denison, 7 Apr. 1857

This brief epistle marked the beginning of Denison’s fifteen-year tenure of the Speaker’s chair: just over three weeks later, on 30 April, the Commons chose him as Speaker, with no…