Henry Hill

Parliament, not judges, should decide our laws

The British commentariat has not covered itself in glory in its reaction to Dominic Raab’s proposed reforms to judicial review. The Times reported yesterday that the government is planning to introduce a novel legislative tactic, the ‘Interpretation Bill’, to try to shift the balance of power back towards parliament. To be clear: there is no prospect of ministers being given the power to strike down court judgments they dislike.

In fact, the core of the proposal is perfectly orthodox. The proper way for parliament to change the law is through legislation, and an Interpretation Bill is legislation. It would need to be passed in the normal way, and MPs would have to vote it through. No despotism involved.

The barrister and commentator Matthew Scott has suggested on Coffee House that parliament would be unable to improve on the carefully considered judgements of the courts in the limited amount of time that an annual bill would allow.

When judges’ interpretations deviate from that of politicians, parliament has every right to update the law to make its intentions clear

There is some merit to the idea that an annual bill would be impractical, but it is not an insurmountable hurdle. Yes, an annual bill would place more strain on an already-crowded legislative timetable and there could well be a case for reducing the frequency of the legislation.

However, an omnibus bill tackling multiple cases at once remains less time-consuming either than bringing forward ad hoc legislation in response to individual cases or trying to do a wholesale overhaul of any legislation affected by adverse judgments. If you believe in what the Interpretation Bill is trying to achieve — returning to parliament ultimate sovereignty — it seems the least-worst means of doing it.

This approach also has the advantage of focusing parliament’s intervention directly on the point of controversy, which would make it more difficult for judges to interpret their way around the point in future.

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