Posts Tagged ‘elections’
The Queen’s speech 2021: proposals affecting the English Legal System
In this note I set out a brief summary of those Bills which are most likely to impact upon the English Legal System and the topics I consider in my book on the subject.
Top of the list is the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. This Bill is not new, but is one being carried over from the last Parliament.
It has already attracted a great deal of public attention with widespread protests against its proposals for changing the law on the powers of the police to control demonstrations.
But it is a Bill which goes much wider than that and contains a range of important proposals which will affect reforms to the ways of working in courts and tribunals, on bail and on sentencing.
A Draft Victims Bill will also be published containing proposals to:
● Put into law the rights that were set out in the recent Victims’ Code which are designed to improve victims of crime experience of the criminal justice systeem; and
● Set expectations for the standard and availability of victim support for victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence.
Being a draft Bill, these ideas will be the subject of consultation before a definitive Bill is presented to Parliament. These measures are unlikely to become law for a couple of years.
A Judicial Review Bill is proposed. The issue of judicial review has been on the Government’s agenda for a long time. It was the subject of a review by a team led by Lord Faulks which suggested the possibility of some detailed changes to the current law (in particularly creating a power for the courts to suspend a quashing order) but which thought the main principles of the law should remain unchanged. The Government has launched a consultation on whether further questions need to be addressed, in particular whether and if so how the courts could be prevented from reviewing particular categories of issue. The outcome of this consultation is not yet available. I assume that the Bill which has been announced will not be published until the current consultation is completed.
A Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill is designed to repeal the Fixed-Terms Parliaments Act 2011. In addition, the briefing on the Bill states that it will revive the prerogative powers relating to the dissolution of Parliament, and the calling of a new Parliament. (This provokes an interesting question whether prerogative powers – which are the residual powers of the Crown still exercised by the Executive branch of Government – retain this character once they have been provided for in an Act of Parliament.)
Furthermore, it is said that the Bill will reaffirm ‘the long-standing position that the courts may not block a dissolution (and hence a general election)’ through a non-justiciability clause.
Both the Judicial Review Bill and the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill will be the subject of intense critical debate, particularly by constitutional and public lawyers as well as others interested in the operation of Government.
Finally, mention may be made of the Electoral Integrity Bill which make changes to the ways in which elections are run. In addition to the widely publicised proposal that voters should be required to bring some form of photo ID with them to the polling station, the Bill will also require election messages sent on social media should contain an ‘imprint’ showing who has published the message; improving access to polling stations for the disabled; and removing limits on the ability of UK citizens who live overseas (expats) to vote in UK elections.
The speech and the background briefing are available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/queens-speech-2021-background-briefing-notes
Redrawing Parliamentary constituency boundaries?
The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 had two objectives. The first was to authorise the holding of a referendum on whether the ‘first part the post’ voting system used in general elections should change to one that offered some proportional representation. The idea was rejected.
The second was that the number of MPs in the House of Commons should be reduced from 650 to 600, and that the population size of constituencies should be made more equal.
It was originally intended that these measures should be introduced for the 2015 General Election, but the Lib Dem members of the Coalition Government scuppered the idea, as they could not persuade the Conservative partners in the Coalition Government to take House of Lords reform seriously.
Meanwhile the Boundary Commissions of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have been beavering away, developing proposals for realigning parliamentary boundaries. They have just (October 2017) published a second round of consultations on their latest proposals. Final report reports are due in 2018.
The unknown question at the moment is whether the present Government will in fact go ahead with the proposed reduction in the numbers of seats. Many have argued that the fact that Mrs May does not have an overall majority in the present Parliament will mean that she cannot afford to run the risk of defeat on any proposal to fully implement the Boundary Commissions’ proposals.
Each Boundary Commission has its own website. The one for England is at https://boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/2018-review/
Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 and the General Election 2017
There were those who thought that the enactment of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 meant that there would be general elections only every 5 years, unless very special circumstances arose. Enacted by the Cameron-Clegg government, it was designed to give some assurance that the Coalition Government would stay in power and would not be able to call a general election just on the whim of the Prime Minister.
What few people appreciated, however, was that the terms of the legislation did not in fact prevent the Prime Minister – now Theresa May – from putting in process the steps that would enable her to call an election, at a time when she was seeking to strengthen her position as Prime Minister, given her apparent strong position in the opinion polls. All she needed was a vote passed by a 2/3rds majority of MPs to trigger an early election.
As we now know, things did not work out like that. Her gamble did not pay off – at least not in the way she anticipated. So where are we with the Fixed-term Parliaments Act?
It remains on the statute book, and there are some who think that there will be a General Election – under the terms of the Act – in 2022. Political reality suggests, however, that the next election will take place before then. Exactly when will depend on specific factors such as strength of the Prime Minister’s position, and the progress of the Brexit negotiations.
I would not be surprised if, at some date in the not too distant future, steps were taken to repeal the legislation – unless perhaps there is another period of Coalition Government in the UK.
Prisoners’ Voting Rights: Supreme Court judgement
The decision of the UK Supreme Court on Prisoners’ voting rights, published on 16 October 2013, seems to me to be rather more nuanced than much of the media coverage I have read and heard.
The case which reached the Supreme Court involved two appeals, one from England (Chester) and one from Scotland (McKeoch). Only the Chester case invoked the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act 1998. Both cases also raised a question of EU law.
The issue under EU law arose from the focus in the EU on the core concerns of ensuring equal treatment between EU citizens residing in Member States other than that of their nationality, and so safeguarding freedom of movement within the EU. However, eligibility to vote in Member States is basically a matter for national legislatures, and a matter for each individual legislature to determine. In any event, the EU legal principle of non-discrimination would still not be engaged. Convicted prisoners serving their sentence are not in a comparable position to persons not in prison. Thus, in both cases, the Supreme Court held that EU law did not apply.
As regards the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act 1998, the Supreme Court noted that in a series of cases (Hirst (No 2) v UK, Greens v UK and Scoppola v Italy) the European Court of Human Rights (“ECtHR”) had held that a blanket prohibition of this nature is an indiscriminate restriction on a vitally important right and, as such, incompatible with Article 3 of Protocol No 1, the duty to hold free and fair elections.
Under the HRA, the Supreme Court is required to “take into account” decisions of the ECtHR, not necessarily to follow them. This enables the national courts to engage in a constructive dialogue with the ECtHR. However, the prohibition on prisoner voting in the UK has now been considered by the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR twice and, on each occasion, found to be incompatible with Article 3 Protocol 1. In these circumstances, it would have to involve some truly fundamental principle of law or the most egregious oversight or misunderstanding before it could be appropriate for the Supreme Court to refuse to follow Grand Chamber decisions of the ECtHR. The ban on prisoner voting is not, in the Supreme Court’s view, a fundamental principle of law in the UK, and the circumstances do not justify a departure from the ECtHR’s caselaw.
Thus contrary to some reporting, the Supreme Court has upheld the ECtHR’s view that the UK’s blanket ban on voting rights is incompatible with the European Convention. The Supreme Court did not issue a declaration of incompatibility, however, because that is a discretionary remedy; the Court had already issued such a declaration; the Government was undertaking work to respond to the initial declaration; it was not for the Court to say how the Government should ultimately resolve the matter; and that therefore, being a discretionary remedy, the Court would not exercise its discretion in this case.
So the ball is still very much in the Government’s court.
The full judgement of the Supreme Court and a press release prepared by the Court are available at http://www.supremecourt.gov.uk/news/latest-judgments.html
Martin Partington: Introduction to the English Legal System 15th ed 2021
Oxford University Press Learning Link Resources
Martin Partington: Spotlight on the Justice System 