Not to want to lose my human rights on the whim of a government minister?

[SecondRateFrog]

Dominic Raab says he wants to bring in a system which allows the Government to legislate against UK court judgements in human rights cases if it doesn't like them. Without going through a debate or a vote in Parliament.
Is this the end of the role of the courts in our democracy?
"Raab threat to ‘correct’ court judgments is ‘deeply troubling’, warn legal experts"
It's in The Telegraph too.
uk.yahoo.com/news/raab-threat-correct-court-judgments-144345935.html

It's very much the mechanism and the mindset of sidelining the primacy of the law that are problems, on top of the current direct target of his attack which is western concepts of human rights.

One day the target is human rights as established by the ECHR. Tomorrow the government can focus on some other topic.

Maybe interment without trial on suspicion of certain offenses will be introduced in England, Scotland, and Wales, just as it was in NI for a few years during the last century.

This is what he is talking of 'overhauling' at present: Human Rights Act

As DAG the commentator points out, it may well be symbolic and that he is forced to re-introduce the same legislation for NI at least in order to honour the Good Friday Agreement. So it might just have been noise with which to please the party faithful at the Tory Conference.

mathanxiety no referendum in the UK is binding. Parliament is sovereign and could decide not to implement the result of any referendum. But can you imagine the fallout if they had chosen not to implement the result of the Brexit referendum?

mathanxiety no referendum in the UK is binding. Parliament is sovereign and could decide not to implement the result of any referendum. But can you imagine the fallout if they had chosen not to implement the result of the Brexit referendum?

Yes, about 2/3 of the population would have been either happy or ambivalent.

MadameMaxGoesler a referendum would be binding if Parliament enacted the legislation to make it so.

As to what would have happened if they hadn't implemented the result - the vast majority wouldn't have cared. They weren't all that interested in the EU before and have gone back to being not interested. However, individual groups would still be very interested - businesses whose EU trade has now been scuppered by Johnson's apology for a deal, would have breathed a sigh of relief and carried on. Or for example people who might have retired to Spain and now find that they won't be able to, should be delighted that the option of doing so has been taken from them, so they need not trouble to think through the decision.

Peregrina Unlike the legislation for the 2011 Alternative Vote referendum it was not possible for the 2016 Referendum legislation to contain the exit terms because they depended on the outcome of negotiations.
The Leaver majority would have cared very much indeed.

@Peregrina. I understand what act it is but no one knows what changes he's actually intending to make to it. Or do they? Before people get so much angst, wouldn't it be better to wait and read the white paper?

A referendum could have been made binding, and if that had been the case a super majority would almost certainly have been required. But no, we decided that an advisory referendum was OK which is now apparently cast in tablets of stone for all time and must never be altered because a handful of leavers are screaming that it must be so.

One has to wonder how many of the 17 million are still alive - the dead ones aren't in a position to stamp their feet about it. Anyway the rest have got their brexit, but funnily enough, there seem to be a lot of complaints about it.

I understand what act it is but no one knows what changes he's actually intending to make to it. Or do they? Before people get so much angst, wouldn't it be better to wait and read the white paper?

I suspect he doesn't know himself yet, and it was just as I said, noise for the party faithful. At the same time though, the corona virus regulations, which limit our freedom quite substantially, have just been renewed with almost no debate. So people who value democracy need to be vigilant.

Peregrina How? Give me the exact legislative mechanism.
And of course the result of this referendum is not set in stone for all time anymore than the result of the 1975 referendum was. You are at liberty to campaign for a referendum to re-join the EU. And surely you would insist it required a super majority...

@wewereliars

We have parliament if the government want to make new law, so that a proper scrutiny of that proposed legislation is considered and debated by the MPs who represent us.

I remember it was parliamentaty sovereignty that the brexit liars were pretending was the reason we had to have brexit.

What Raab seems to be suggesting is government by executive edict with no legislative scrutiny. That breaches the separation of the 3 powers which is fundamental to democracy.

It is the path to tyranny

Beautifully put, @wewereliars .

This is an early step onto a very slippery slope imo.

LakieLady Raab is not proposing changing legislation by executive fiat. He is investigating a parliamentary process to make it easier to do what parliament already has the powers to do, namely change the law.

Give me the exact legislative mechanism.

Try doing a google search. You will find loads of links which talk about them.
But the normal mechanism is that laws are proposed in the Commons, go to the Lords, back to the Commons and eventually if agreed get Royal assent.

@SweatyAmy

Secondary legislation is debated in Parliament in the form of statutory instruments, I believe. I may be wrong.

@mellongoose - whether Statutory Instruments are debated in Parliament depends on the vires (powers) under which the regulations were made.

If a statutory instrument is made under the affirmative procedure then there will be a debate.

It the SI is made under the negative procedure there won't be a debate. A debate may be triggered if Parliamentarians pray against the SI.

Thatcher was widely criticised for introducing "paving bills", that made the enactment of the SIs proposed in the bills a formality.

At the time, this was regarded as very undemocratic, but compared to the Raab proposal it seems positively liberal.

Bit you don't know what Raab is actually going to be proposing?

Peregrina I'm familiar with the process for passing primary legislation (though I'm not sure you are). What I asked was for you to give me the exact legislative process to make binding a referendum on Brexit so that the legislation required to withdraw (the Withdrawal Agreement Act) and the legislation encompassing the terms on which we withdrew (the Trade and Co-operation Agreement) could be incorporated in it.
Btw, lots of Bills start in the Lords.

madisonbridges We do know that he is proposing a parliamentary process and not, as some of the more hysterical posters on here are suggesting, a government fiat, because he said so in his interview with the Telegraph.

You are twisting MadameMaxGoesler.

I am talking only about Referendums, or Referenda!). Not talking about the legislative process which brought subsequent agreements into being. But since you have told me that you are sure you know more than me - then pray tell me what was impossible with making the 2016 binding? The question was pretty simple - Remain or Leave, there were no supplementary questions about "if leave..." EEA type arrangement, Canada plus, border in the Irish Sea etc.? Rees-Mogg as I recall once suggested that We had two referendums. He then of course tried to talk his way out of it, or said he'd been misinterpreted.

Strangely enough, he's been a bit quiet of late - perhaps he's gone off to learn how to drive an HGV.

LakieLady SIs cannot exceed the powers granted to them in the parent Act, which as primary legislation has passed the full parliamentary process.
Can you imagine if every SI - say one to close the airspace over Windsor Castle for the Duke of Edinburgh's funeral - had to pass first and second reading, committee stage, report stage, third reading and consideration of amendments before becoming law? Nothing would get done.
Have a look an legislation.gov and see how many SIs there are in a year.

Peregrina Do you not think there was a legislative process to enable the 2016 referendum to be held? It was the European Referendum Act 2015. How would you have incorporated into that legislation a Withdrawal Agreement Act and a Trade and Co-operation Agreement when their content was not yet determined.

This is what Raab actually said.

I note this extract:

We will overhaul the Human Rights Act

I see no statement about involving Parliament in this. The example he gave earlier was already dissected by David Allen Green, in the link up thread and suggested that he didn't know that the cases he was citing had already been addressed by subsequent legislation, or was just dissembling.

Since he didn't realise how much trade passed through Dover - Calais and apparently didn't realise how stupid this admission made him look, being knowledge that a junior school child might well know, then one doesn't have much faith in what he says.

Peregrina How do you think the Human Rights Act would be overhauled (amended) without involving Parliament?
This is what Raab said about changing the law (my emphases):
"Outlining plans to use legislation to "correct" judgments, Mr Raab said: "We're identifying the problems and we're making sure we fix them ... We will get into the habit of legislating on a more periodic basis and thinking about the mechanism for that. Where there have been judgments that, albeit properly and duly delivered by the courts, we think are wrong, the right thing is for Parliament to legislate to correct them."

How would you have incorporated into that legislation a Withdrawal Agreement Act and a Trade and Co-operation Agreement when their content was not yet determined.

You tell me, you are the one who is claiming the expertise.
It was a simple yes/no question. A subsequent action by a better PM could have said that the mood of the country was to Leave, but the result was close, and then set up a commission to examine the pros and cons of different options and reporting back to Parliament. Followed by a full debate. Had this been the case, the subsequent problems of Johnson's rushed and bodged agreements could have been tackled. It shouldn't have been too difficult to find out how many industries were dependent on EU labour and if such people were no longer in this country, where would other labour come from?

We already have this and people havent realised. Pretty much every response to Covid have been made by government decree and no-one has batted an eyelid and just complied (by and large).

Thats why very few MPs turned up at the Coronavirus Act extension debate the other night, and why they didnt even bother taking a vote.

To quote Mr Ferguson 'we didnt think we could get away with it, and then we did.'

Is it any surprise that the government wants to extend ruling by diktat to areas other than Covid.......its a bit late to push back now.

Letsgetreal The vast majority of COVID measures have been taken under public health legislation. Only a handful of measures have been taken under the Coronavirus Act and these are mainly measures to prevent residential tenants from eviction.