Thursday 12 June 2008

42 days passes

So as everyone knows by now, the Government won the vote on Counter Terrorism by a majority of 9, all of which are Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party MPs.

Roger Gale voted no on all votes whilst Stephen Ladyman voted in favour on all votes.

As Ive said before, the Bill is wrong for a number of reasons. The most important reason to me against the Bill is how Parliament is to be used, in effect acting like a court does, but the judges being made up of the very people who voted the law through. The legislature should never be in this proximity to the judiciary and that is a serious breach of the rule of the separation of powers. The weaker the split between the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary, the worse it is. They must be distinct from each other to avoid abuse of such powers.


UPDATE David Davis has resigned as Shadow Home Secretary and MP to force a by-election on the issue of 42 days and against the attack on civil liberties that has occured under Labour. He will be fighting as an Independent, without the backing of CCHQ but with the support of his Association. The man's got balls and I applaud him. He is a good man and will hopefully win the by-election.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This abusive law had better fail in the Lords or I will be ashamed to call myself British.

James Maskell said...

The general thinking is that the Lords will amend the Bill and send it back, leading to parliamentary ping pong. Unfortunately the Commons has primacy and therefore can shove it through anyway using the Parliament Act after a certain amount of time. Sadly this is the world we live in, where a Government can manipulate the legislature to force bad law onto the books.

Nemesis said...

As I think you know my view is that even if the Head of MI5 were allowed to ritually burn Magna Carta and have unlimited power then MI5 and Police would remain, against SERIOUS terror by asymmetric warfare, as much use as a one legged man in an arse kick competition.

have a look and maybe sign ?

I am known as the "Irritating Bloke". I enjoy that.

But what is the basis of my position ? That Magna Carta binds the monarchy to appoint as constables only men who know the law of the Realm and who are minded to keep it well.

Each constable swears an oath, binding unto death, to the Queen and becomes an independent ministerial officer of the Crown NOT (as in Kent of late) a uniformed civil service lackey of the Home Secretary.

And it matters. Because the Crown administration of justice is our check and balance against the development of dictatorship and our bulwark against people being where the law says none can be ... above the law itself.

The constable and his duty, bound only by the Coronation Oath, is an important part of our time honoured system.

I am glad to see others getting hot under the collar about Habeus corpus and Magna Carta.

David Davies is doing the right thing.

But I think he may live to regret his methods in the future.

By that I mean "Condone the fool and purchase the folly". He is arguing with Gordon Brown on the agenda set by Tony Blair.

Davis needs to challenge the agenda.

Blair made a Chamberlaineque blunder in the Good Friday Agreement.

All I can say is that I was surprised to get the petition approved when the text mentions as much and that Blair appeared to know he had blundered against the national security interest.

Davis will win without changing the debate but he may regret it in the longer term.

Best wishes