The trouble with Grieve: Cameron may regret leaving the law to a lawyer

14 November 2009

James Forsyth reviews the week in Politics

Some insiders think that events will force Grieve to move faster, or be moved. One predicts that as soon as a decision based on the Human Rights Act becomes a cause célèbre, the British Bill of Rights will move from being a ‘year four and a half priority to a year one one’.

And, no one quite knows if Grieve’s plan will be enough to keep the Strasbourg court in line. One shadow Cabinet member, who has tangled with Grieve over the issue, predicts that Cameron will perform a rapid U-turn on the British Bill of Rights straight after the first case telling him that he has to pay compensation to a terrorist detained without trial.

Ultimately, Grieve is committed to keeping Britain in the ECHR, and thus under the final jurisdiction of the Strasbourg court. But the impression given by the Tory talk of a British Bill of Rights is that the courts in this country will have the final say. In the long run, this tension is impossible to square. Cameron might well come to regret leaving the law to a lawyer.

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denis cooper

November 12th, 2009 1:21pm Report this comment

Yes, well as I understand it was Dominic Grieve who advised that Bill Cash's New Clause 9 would "create a constitutional contradiction", and therefore Tory MPs should not vote for it.

To sum up what happened, Declaration 17 attached to the Lisbon Treaty asserts the inherent superiority of EU treaties and laws over national laws, a doctrine invented by lawyers at the EU's Court of Justice, and so to affirm and protect the legal supremacy of our Parliament Bill Cash tabled an amendment to the Bill to implement the treaty, which read as follows:

"New Clause 9

Supremacy of Parliament

‘Notwithstanding any provision of the European Communities Act 1972, nothing in this Act shall affect or be construed by any court in the United Kingdom as affecting the supremacy of the United Kingdom Parliament.’.— [Mr. Cash.]"

So according to Grieve a precautionary amendment to affirm and protect the supremacy of our national Parliament would "create a constitutional contradiction", a view which is only comprehensible if it has come from somebody who has abandoned his own commitment to that supremacy, notwithstanding the Oath of Allegiance which he swore prior to taking his seat in the Commons.

Unfortunately he is not alone in this: when the Cash amendment was put to a vote, Division 120 on March 5th 2008, here:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmhansrd/cm080305/debtext/80305-0024.htm

it was defeated 380 - 48.

Robert Slack

November 12th, 2009 1:37pm Report this comment

The fact he is half French may explain more than his fluency in the language.

Haldane

November 15th, 2009 8:11pm Report this comment

If there is a problem, and I'm not sure that there is, it would be that he is too good a mam for our political landscape, both intellectually and morally. There is also the danger that your man Forsyth has become so inured to ways of the Westminster Village that he takes the judgments of the politicos to whom he gossips as the best and most authentic arbiters as to how politics is now seen by the electorate. Some clue to this is given by the casual manner in which he reveals, without evident shock or horror, how a tabloid editor can have (shadow) cabinet ministers removed for disagreeing with her.

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