Keep your hands off the judiciary, Labour tells PM
Boris Johnson has been told to keep his “populist hands” off the judiciary amid reports No 10 is set to fasttrack an overhaul of the way legal challenges are brought against the government. In plans first floated at the 2019 snap election, the prime minister vowed to ensure judicial reviews brought against ministerial decisions – such as the Supreme Court prorogation case – are “not abused to conduct politics by another means”.
In a move that caused alarm among constitutional experts, the Conservative manifesto also promised to set up a Constitution, Democracy and Rights Commission to examine the “relationship between the government, parliament and the courts”.
According to The Daily Telegraph, however, Mr Johnson has shelved plans to set up a commission and will
next week unveil a new panel to examine the issue of judicial review. It will be tasked with producing a report on how the system can be reformed in an effort to speed up the process.
No 10 did not respond for comment when approached by The Independent, but David Lammy, the shadow justice secretary, said the courts must be allowed to hold the government to account when it acts against the law. “The independence of judges is central to our democratic settlement,” the Labour frontbencher said. “Boris Johnson should keep his grubby, populist hands off the judiciary.”
He later added: “Labour will oppose attacks on our judiciary and further attempts by Boris Johnson to restrict scrutiny and hoard more power in No 10.”
It has previously been suggested by critics that the proposals to overhaul the judicial review process are a means by which No 10 is seeking to exact revenge for the prime minister’s humiliating defeat at the Supreme Court last autumn when justices ruled his decision to prorogue parliament was unlawful.
Two years earlier, his predecessor Theresa May was also defeated at the highest court in the UK, forcing her to give MPs a vote on invoking Article 50 — kickstarting the formal negotiations with the European Union over Brexit.
Businessperson Gina Miller, who brought the Article 50 and prorogation cases against the government, told The Independent: “The plans to curb the scope and power of judicial review should raise alarm bells for us all. The government appears to be more concerned with avoiding scrutiny than reform, and to announce these plans when parliament has risen is nothing but calculated.
She added: “The public should question whether the government’s decision to break with its manifesto pledge and fast-track the review with a ‘panel’ is to prevent any accountability for the handling of the pandemic via judicial review.
“The system is very carefully calibrated so people cannot just turn up at the courts and bring cases; however much money they may have. There are pre-action processes, submissions, permission stages that sift out the weak cases or cases that do not meet the legal threshold. This government appears to be running scared of accountability, scrutiny and checks on their powers or abuse of it, and their failings – with such a large majority, you have to wonder why.”
Speaking last week on the issue, Mr Johnson said: “What we are looking at is whether there are some ways in which judicial review does indeed go too far or does indeed have perverse consequences that were not perhaps envisaged when the tradition of judicial review began.”
At the December election, the Conservative manifesto stated: “We will ensure that judicial review is available to protect the rights of individuals against an overbearing state, while ensuring that it is not abused to conduct politics by another means or create endless delays. In our first year we will set up a Constitution, Democracy and Rights Commission that will examine these issues in depth, and come up with proposals to restore trust in our institutions and in how our democracy operates.”