Law Society
People, Parliament, Executive & Judiciary A
s a lawyer, when I think of the Supreme Court ruling with regard to the lawfulness of the Prime Minister’s actions, it makes me feel proud that the Supreme Court is Supreme and has exercised powers over the Parliament and the Executive/Cabinet. Everyone in the legal profession may be proud that they belong to this profession, which produces the Supreme Power. It is a fundamental principle of the sovereignty and democracy that the Parliament, Executive and Judiciary should remain independent and distant. An unusual situation has arisen in British democracy. Britain is proud of Magna Carta, the whole world admires our system and follows as well. Westminster Parliament is known in the world as the mother of Parliaments. The judicial decisions are being followed all the over the world. However, in this scenario I am beginning to wonder whether the Parliament has used or abused the judicial arm of the democracy to fulfil its agenda and motives. This judgement and the events preceding to the judgement can create various problems to taint our system in the years to come. Parliamentarians and other instructed parties instructed outside Parliament can time and again make applications in the Court to curtail the actions of the Executive. In the event of a war situation, a serious threat from an enemy which is imminent, the anti-war lobbies and eccentric Parliamentarians can go to Courts to argue and curtail/delay/ frustrate the Executive/Cabinet from protecting our Nation. By the time a final decision of the Supreme Court comes, the enemy would have executed the threat. Another dangerous precedence open by this Supreme Court Judgement is that the independence of Judiciary can be interfered with. Such an important Judgement curtailing the Executive, the people who delegated the sovereignty to the Parliament and through the Parliament to the Executive is being frustrated to carry out their decisions. This will open the Judiciary and the Judges to be subjected to scrutiny. Questions are going to be raised in the people’s minds, whether these 11 Lord Justices are more inclined to remain or leave! It can even be extended to question whether Lord Justices from Scotland will overrule the judgments from the Scottish Courts! Will the Lord Justices from Wales be absolutely independent against the will of the people of Wales who overwhelmingly voted to remain! Investigative journalists would like to probe into the Judge’s
background and also to take statistics of Judgements of these individual judges who delivered Judgements for or against the Government in past. We should not lose sight of the fact that Judges are also human however independent they try to be. When I think about the consequences of the Supreme Court Judgement, I am wondering whether it was a worthwhile exercise of this Supreme Court action and what have we achieved and at what cost? We have achieved another four weeks of Parliament sitting, an excitement and enjoyment of the opposition supporters and the anti-Boris Johnson lobby and nothing else. The honourable independent Judges of Great Britain have been put into a risky position to be subjected to anxious scrutiny from the Public and the media. The noble traditions and the pride of having an unwritten Constitution has been exposed to create doubt. Previous Prime Ministers never openly and personally criticized the then current Prime Minister. It is a noble tradition. When a Prime Minister is abroad, opposition leaders not attacking the Prime Minister locally is a noble tradition. A previous Prime Minister not filing a case and becoming a claimant against the current Prime Minister is a noble tradition. All these traditions have been broken. Are our Politicians and traditions still Noble? By the present actions of the Parliament, Executive, and the Supreme Court interfering and expressing opinion on an act of a sitting Prime Minister, has kick-started the question whether the unwritten Constitution should be abandoned and a proper strict written Constitution be given birth? Our great Nation Britain, has survived great two Wars and terrorist attacks and still surviving as a great nation in the world. I am a strong believer that this is a blessed country because thousands of Christian missionaries had gone all over the world and carried out charity work, education and also spread the word of God. This nation is still prospering from that blessing of God. May God bless our great United Kingdom. ■
A. Sriharan
Past President Middlesex Law Society
The BILL of Middlesex 15
