Mumsnet Talk

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/aug/01/budget-legal-challenge-women-equality

I find this utterly depressing; I'm glad that the Fawcett Society are bringing this action against the Old Boys Society government... But what depresses me most is that most women I know don't appear to give a flying monkey's left testicle.

women and children. makes me so mad!

I know. Mad doesn't even cover it. But why don't women care...?

i think there will be a revolt once people really understand - alot of it is just talk at the moment

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I sincerely hope you're right SEA; I am feeling decidedly pessimistic though

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edam put a thread up earlier under 'in the news' on the same article. here

There's only been about 4 posts. I'm also really surprised that none of the news channels have picked up on this story. Although I have just noticed something on BBC website.

Thanks for the link pinkteddy. Seven posters out of the entire mumsnet membership...

In the words of my 8 year old: whoopdiddywhoop.

Huh?

Surely it is for Parliament, not the courts, to decide our laws.

If you don't like what the government does then chuck them out at the next election.

We elect our MPs and can hold them accountable. Unelected and probably out-of-touch judges should not be making public policy.

And who elected the Fawcett Society? Why don't they stand for Parliament instead of submitting vexatious lawsuits?

I don't have anything useful to add to the thread, but am commenting, because I hope the challenge works and to keep the thread bumped.

This reflects what I have been thinking about these cuts. It is gross hypocrisy to say "we're all in it together". I've been watching the Coalition spin over the last few weeks with disbelief.

longfingernails parliament has already decided our laws, and the government must work within them. The law says the government needed to carry out an assessment of the impact of their budget on women and men. It's not clear they even did this, and if they did, they took no action and did not report the results to parliament before they voted on the budget.

The Fawcett Society is not trying to force judges to make public policy, merely to force the government to stick to rules already agreed by parliament. And good on them.

Thank God there's a challenge out there and I really hope that that current level of apparent apathy is more about gathering energies.

I am all for increasing awareness of women's issues in politics.

This is totally the wrong way to go about it though. Subverting democracy through lawsuits isn't something to be done lightly.

Parliament hasn't decided the laws "already" - the statute book is organic and changing. The budget is a statutory device voted on by the people we send to Parliament - maybe the second most important decision that Parliament makes, after decisions on whether to go to war. The way each MP votes is a matter for their conscience and constituents - not unelected judges and pressure groups.

In any case, gender impact assessment of all laws seems rather unnecessary to me, even if it is currently a statutory requirement. If Labour were vaguely competent, and the budget were truly unfair, they would use research by the IFS, the House of Commons library, and the like to do their job, and oppose the coalition on the issue of the gender impact of the budget.

Of course the Fawcett Society and all sorts of other pressure groups should make their views heard - but they should do it through the media, letter writing campaigns, protests, etc. Politicians have to get re-elected - after all, if the Fawcett Society's case were sufficiently persuasive, then they could probably scare the coalition into a rethink. I think that to take fundamental issues of politics into the courts is totally wrong.

That path inevitably leads to the judiciary then eventually becomes an unaccountable executive in itself.

Hooray for the Fawcett Society. I was really pleased to read about this.

longfingernails- There is an unelected government in power...??

Longfingernail, that is how our government works. Laws are made which are then tested in the courts. It's the natural process of things.

Actually longfingernails, the government is breaking the law and Fawcett is attempting to force the government to explain itself and keep to keep within the law. This is not an opinion forced on the government by mad feminists: this is an attempt to address the fact that the law is being broken.

Your argument is illogical as it suggests that if the government breaks the law, lobby groups should protest in the media and so on (unbiased as it is, as seen during the last election) and if that doesn't work, too bad because going to the courts is a bad idea Umm, the courts are there to deal with people and organisations that break the law.

Misshousehunter In what way is this government unelected?

jenny60 Government agencies can break the law. MPs can even break the law - say, if they drink drive. They can even break the law via Parliament - for example, by fiddling expenses. But to saw that MPs can break the law via the process of lawmaking is a step too far - that's a horribly authoritarian mindset.

If that really is legislation which Labour introduced to that effect, then it should be immediately repealed - it is totally contrary to the 1689 Bill of Rights which gives Parliament proceedings immunity from the Courts.

I believe people should be accountable and responsible for their decisions. That is paramount for a democracy to function. How does the great British public kick out an officer of the Fawcett Society or a judge?

longfingernails - its quite obvious really, 2 losing partys come together to form a government.

Neither of the two governments won the election which = unelected government.

That is pretty laughable.

Legally speaking, both the governments of Gordon Brown and David Cameron were "elected" because they were comprised of elected Members of Parliament with sufficient ability to steer legislation through the House of Commons.

But morally speaking, David Cameron has far more legitimacy to be PM than Gordon Brown ever did. He won the most seats in an election campaign.

Of course, he is not as legitimate a PM as Blair, Major or Thatcher.

'But to saw that MPs can break the law via the process of lawmaking is a step too far - that's a horribly authoritarian mindset'

Passing a budget is not lawmaking. It's passing a udget and if the law is broken while the budget is being passed, the ruling party has got to stopped. This is not authoritarianism, it's the opposite. It's in places like China and where the governemnt can break the law and not be held to account.

Are you seriously trying to tell us that the government, as a government, is perfectly entitled to break the law because of the 1689 'Bill of Rights'? The bill the Labour Party introduced did not specifically allow for judicial challenge. It in fact had nothing to do with it and, if the case goes to the courts, the judge will will not be overturning or even questionaing the validity the law. They will be hearing a case about whether the law was broken. Can't you see the distinction?

Of course passing a budget is lawmaking - MPs debate the "Finance Bill". It is a statutory process, which occurs at least once a year.

In China there is no way to kick out the Communist Party. There is an easy way to get rid of the coalition in a few years time, if the public are so minded.

I thought the Iraq war was totally wrong, but for the same reasons, arguments about its "legality" are stupid. Parliament passes our laws; the process of lawmaking should never be subjugated to unaccountable externalities.

If the public don't like it they have more than adequate redress via the ballot box.

said it before... the tories want to push women out of the workplace and back into the home.

Here is the relevant bit from the 1689 Bill of Rights:

And thereupon the said Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons, pursuant to their respective letters and elections, being now assembled in a full and free representative of this nation, taking into their most serious consideration the best means for attaining the ends aforesaid, do in the first place (as their ancestors in like case have usually done) for the vindicating and asserting their ancient rights and liberties declare

[...]

That the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament;