Brexit Encore

[Chris Kern]

Recessions are the economy's way of correcting imbalances. The EU, America,  China etc have al been running up debt. Creating bubbles.

The German government has not exactly been running up debt.  Arguably there are other fundamental problems in the German economy, including excessive reliance on manufacturing-sector exports, especially automobiles and industrial machinery, but a spendthrift government isn't one of them.

[kers]

Recessions are the economy's way of correcting imbalances....

But what happened is that banks were saved by the EU and The US by printing more and more money.
The capitalist system is not working as it is supposed to; At the moment we have negative interest rates in the EU because of it.
The logic is out the system.

[Alan Klein]

The German government has not exactly been running up debt.  Arguably there are other fundamental problems in the German economy, including excessive reliance on manufacturing-sector exports, especially automobiles and industrial machinery, but a spendthrift government isn't one of them.

That's great having a budget surplus.  America's deficit is over one trillion. But Germany relies on exports.  When people in foreign lands stop running up debt, German exports suffer.  They get infected by us so their GDP suffers.  Brexit could be aggravating the situation as well. 

[Alan Klein]

But what happened is that banks were saved by the EU and The US by printing more and more money.
The capitalist system is not working as it is supposed to; At the moment we have negative interest rates in the EU because of it.
The logic is out the system.

When America went off the gold standard, things went to hell.  We haven't stopped printing and borrowing since.  Politicians don't want to tell their voters "no" to anything they want.  Now there's discussion in America to go to negative interest rates as you have in Europe.  We want everything for free.  A day of reckoning is coming.  We're going to kill the golden goose. 

[Alan Klein]

Is this the start of Brexit?

"Thomas Cook Airline Collapse Triggers Largest Peacetime Repatriation In U.K. History"
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/23/763355554/thomas-cook-airline-collapse-triggers-largest-peacetime-repatriation-in-u-k-hist

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Is this the start of Brexit?...

I don’t think it has anything to do with it.

I wish every package-tour agency and every low-cost airline or tour operator goes bankrupt soon. Not only there are too many people on this planet, but too many god-damned tourists everywhere.

[Alan Klein]

I don’t think it has anything to do with it.

I wish every package-tour agency and every low-cost airline or tour operator goes bankrupt soon. Not only there are too many people on this planet, but too many god-damned tourists everywhere.

Fortunately, my wife and I are retired.  So when we travel, we go just off season when kids are still in school.  It's cheaper and less crowded.  Less noisy too.

[Rob C]

I don’t think it has anything to do with it.

I wish every package-tour agency and every low-cost airline or tour operator goes bankrupt soon. Not only there are too many people on this planet, but too many god-damned tourists everywhere.

Sadly, it's also one of the greatest factors within the economy of many nations, Britain, I believe, being amongst them.

On the people factor, 100% with you. Roll on winter. We don't do skiing, despite the number of lost people in stout boots and carrying the sticks, a silly expression on their faces.

Have you noticed how many people on their daily commute, or even just wandering around looking for lost skiers, also carry parachutes all the time? Crazy. Never like that in the 60s: people like myself carried Samsonite briefcases.

:-(

[Chris Kern]

To an American eye, the U.K. Supreme Court's ruling today reads like a British version of Marbury v. Madison, the 1803 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court first asserted the principle of judicial review over Acts of Congress—the authority of the judiciary to invalidate statutes that contravene constitutional principles.

I was especially struck that the court not only declared the prorogation of Parliament to be unconstitutional, but apparently nullified it:

61. It is impossible for us to conclude, on the evidence which has been put before us, that there was any reason - let alone a good reason - to advise Her Majesty to prorogue Parliament for five weeks, from 9th or 12th September until 14th October. We cannot speculate, in the absence of further evidence, upon what such reasons might have been. It follows that the decision was unlawful.

Remedy

62. Mrs Miller asks us to make a declaration that the advice given to Her Majesty was unlawful and we can certainly do that. The question is whether we should do more than that, in order to make it crystal clear what the legal consequences of that holding are. The Inner House did go further and declared, not only that the advice was unlawful, but that “any prorogation which followed thereon, is unlawful and thus null and of no effect”. The essential question is: is Parliament prorogued or is it not?

63. The Government argues that we cannot answer that question, or declare the prorogation null and of no effect, because to do so would be contrary to article 9 of the Bill of Rights of 1688, an Act of the Parliament of England and Wales, or the wider privileges of Parliament, relating to matters within its “exclusive cognisance”. The prorogation itself, it is said, was “a proceeding in Parliament” which cannot be impugned or questioned in any court. . . .

69. This court is not . . . precluded by article 9 or by any wider Parliamentary privilege from considering the validity of the prorogation itself. The logical approach to that question is to start at the beginning, with the advice that led to it. That advice was unlawful. It was outside the powers of the Prime Minister to give it. This means that it was null and of no effect: see, if authority were needed, [citation omitted]. It led to the Order in Council which, being founded on unlawful advice, was likewise unlawful, null and of no effect and should be quashed. This led to the actual prorogation, which was as if the Commissioners had walked into Parliament with a blank piece of paper. It too was unlawful, null and of no effect.

70. It follows that Parliament has not been prorogued and that this court should make declarations to that effect. We have been told by counsel for the Prime Minister that he will “take all necessary steps to comply with the terms of any declaration made by the court” and we expect him to do so. However, it appears to us that, as Parliament is not prorogued, it is for Parliament to decide what to do next.

The court seems to have reserved for itself a bit of wiggle-room with respect to the implications of its decision, noting that the controversy "arises in circumstances which have never arisen before and are unlikely ever to arise again."  But the significance of Marbury wasn't fully apparent until it was subsequently employed as a precedent to strike down other unconstitutional statutes.

[Alan Klein]

But they don't have a constitution like the US does.   They can make it up as they go along.   

[Alan Klein]

What if the next court deems for itself additional powers to decide how government should act?  I'm sure there were similar arguments with Marbury.   But in the UK, unlike in America,  there's no written constitution that codified government powers and perquisites.

[Manoli]

The whole thing strikes me as an entirely futile waste of time, but it's made a lot of people awfully excited.

11 SC justices unanimous in their decision (and a severity of language in the judgement) clearly disagreed with you.
Oops ... !

[Alan Klein]

11 SC justices unanimous in their decision (and a severity of language in the judgement) clearly disagreed with you.
Oops ... !

You guys need a written constitution.  Once the court senses its power, its going to want more. 

[Robert Roaldi]

You guys need a written constitution.  Once the court senses its power, its going to want more.

Give it a rest, that system has been operating for quite a few centuries now. If the courts were going to take over political power it would have happened by now.

I asked you this once before in jest, but now I'm starting to wonder. Are you actually a Russian-paid troll? Because you post like one, you know.

[Alan Klein]

Nyet.

[Jeremy Roussak]

But they don't have a constitution like the US does.   They can make it up as they go along.

Of course we have a constitution. It is not codified in the way in which many countries have set out their constitution, but it is nonsense to suggest that it does not exist. See [39]: Although the United Kingdom does not have a single document entitled “The Constitution”, it nevertheless possesses a Constitution, established over the course of our history by common law, statutes, conventions and practice. Since it has not been codified, it has developed pragmatically, and remains sufficiently flexible to be capable of further development.

Some might observe, watching other countries wrestling with their codified constitutions, that pragmatism and flexibility are not bad things.

11 SC justices unanimous in their decision (and a severity of language in the judgement) clearly disagreed with you.

Not really. My comment was not directed at the legality of the exercise, but on the actual effect it was going to have; and that, given the state of the parties in the Commons and the fact that the declaration may conceivably lead to resumption of sitting in the very near future, is pretty much nil.

I was especially struck that the court not only declared the prorogation of Parliament to be unconstitutional, but apparently nullified it:

The SC neither declared the prorogation unconstitutional, Chris, nor did it nullify it. Rather, it decided that the prorogation was unlawful because it prevented Parliament from doing its duty; hence that the advice given to the Queen to order prorogation was unlawful; and hence it declared that the prorogation itself had not happened.

See [69-70]: The logical approach to that question is to start at the beginning, with the advice that led to it. That advice was unlawful. It was outside the powers of the Prime Minister to give it. This means that it was null and of no effect: see, if authority were needed, R (UNISON) v Lord Chancellor [2017] UKSC 51, para 119. It led to the Order in Council which, being founded on unlawful advice, was likewise unlawful, null and of no effect and should be quashed. This led to the actual prorogation, which was as if the Commissioners had walked into Parliament with a blank piece of paper. It too was unlawful, null and of no effect.

It follows that Parliament has not been prorogued and that this court should make declarations to that effect.

Jeremy

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... it decided that the prorogation was unlawful because it prevented Parliament from doing its duty...

If unlawful, which law was broken?

I understand that prorogation is a pretty standard practice, in which, in every prior instance, the parliament is prevented from doing its duty.

[Manoli]

I was especially struck that the court not only declared the prorogation of Parliament to be unconstitutional, but apparently nullified it:

The verdict was, IIRC, that the advice to the Queen was “unlawful, void and of no effect”.
The order to prorogue akin to a “blank piece of paper” .

It was a triumph for parliamentary sovereignty and a comprehensive condemnation of BoJo and his ERG extremists.

Good op-ed piece by Lord Sumption, an ex-SC justice, on the ruling:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/supreme-court-ruling-is-the-natural-result-of-boris-johnson-s-constitutional-vandalism-kshrnrt55

The last four paragraphs:

The British constitution famously consists of many things that are not law but political conventions. Some of them are rules of practice. Others are attitudes of mind, part of a shared political culture that is based on respect for the centrality of the House of Commons. Political conventions are a better, more flexible and more democratic alternative to law. But if we are to avoid a wholly legal constitution, we must honour them.

The present government has taken an axe to convention. It has sought to use the awesome prerogative powers of the Crown, but without the accountability to parliament that alone makes the existence of those powers tolerable. It has been determined to disregard our only collective political forum. This is something entirely new in British politics.

The natural result of constitutional vandalism on this scale is that conventions have hardened into law. That is the effect of the Supreme Court’s decision. It is infinitely regrettable that it should have come to this, but better than leaving a void governed by neither convention nor law, in which the government can do whatever it likes.

The moral is that under our constitution 52 per cent cannot expect to carry off 100 per cent of the spoils. They have to engage with the rest. That is what parliament is for.

Lord Sumption retired as a justice of the Supreme Court in December last year

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

For the most sane people outside the UK, you guys do not have a constitution. "Attitudes of mind"... give me a break.

"Not law but political conventions..." Damn right it is political. The verdict gives a new meaning to "activist judges."

[Chris Kern]

The SC neither declared the prorogation unconstitutional, Chris, nor did it nullify it. Rather, it decided that the prorogation was unlawful because it prevented Parliament from doing its duty; hence that the advice given to the Queen to order prorogation was unlawful; and hence it declared that the prorogation itself had not happened.

OK, I understand the distinction you're making.  Probably not the best choice of words on my part.  (I initially thought to say that the court held Johnson's recommendation for an extended prorogation to be ultra vires, which is how I interpreted its use of the word "unlawful," but settled on what seemed at the time to be clearer language.)

But unless I'm missing something else, it still seems to me that the Supreme Court has taken a step with this ruling in the direction of American-style judicial review.  The court's decision is self-enforcing, is it not?  No further action by the Prime Minister or Parliament is needed to give it effect; indeed, the Speaker immediately announced that Parliament would sit on Wednesday.  So by its "declaration," the court has effectively nullified (or reversed or countermanded—I don't know what term would be most appropriate) a real-world action taken by the executive.  At least, that's how it appears on this side of the Atlantic.