Thursday, January 27, 2005

It's the Constitution, stupid...

Rather amusing to hear John Jackson, Chairman of the Countryside Alliance, bemoaning the extreme powers that the House of Commons claims for itself by virtue of our unwritten constitution.

I mean, our traditional view of a hunt supporter would be a Telegraph or Mail reading Tory, much prone to using the phrase "political correctness gone made" when faced with any contrary progressive or liberal views. But now, they've become the bastions of freedom, proclaiming, shock horror, that their human rights are about to be infringed!

On one level, this can be written off by saying, "that's democracy" - but on another, the position that the Countryside Alliance and its supporters find themselves in is directly attributable to the rules that the "players" (ie politicians) make for themselves, which go under the name of Constitutional Conventions.

These mean that Parliament's claim to be the supreme lawmaker can't be challenged in court. And, not wishing to predetermine the outcome of the Alliance's challenge to the validity of the 1949 Parliament Act, this is precisely why a law enacted by Parliament - even one bypassing the Lords courtesy of the Parliament Acts - will not be questionned by the judiciary.

People usually find the Constitution boring, only getting excited when an unwritten convention means that they find they can't get their own way. Welcome to reality, Mr Jackson - a reality that's existed for centuries, but usually gets ignored.

After the court decision - why not sign Charter?

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