Jihadi Brides and their Children.

[Jdsk]

Those urging for the exercise of due legal process? The supreme court have made their decision - sounds reasonable to me.

That judgment is on a narrow point of process. I'd like to see her tried for the alleged terrorist offences, and able to defend herself if the state wants to remove her citizenship.

Jonathan

[toontra]

Those urging for the exercise of due legal process? The supreme court have made their decision - sounds reasonable to me.

That judgment is on a narrow point of process. I'd like to see her tried for the alleged terrorist offences, and able to defend herself if the state wants to remove her citizenship.

Jonathan

That's how law works - on narrow points of process. They wouldn't need all those books otherwise

[Jdsk]

Yes, and as above I wasn't disputing their judgment. I was commenting on how the whole process has been unsatisfactory, and am especially concerned about the excessive powers that politicians have in these matters. I'd like to see more of this resolved in the courts.

Jonathan

[toontra]

Yes, and as above I wasn't disputing their judgment. I was commenting on how the whole process has been unsatisfactory, and am especially concerned about the excessive powers that politicians have in these matters. I'd like to see more of this resolved in the courts.

Jonathan

When things don't go the way people like they tend to want more legal process. That's why there is an upper limit - i.e. Supreme Court. Otherwise it would be ad infinitum.

Let's not loose sight of the fact that this person chose to side with a bunch of maniacs who displayed some of the most depraved acts of inhumanity the world has seen.

[Jdsk]

I'm sorry if I'm not explaining this well. I'm not saying that anything that the courts have decided is wrong under the current system. I think that the system is wrong: politicians shouldn't have these powers over individuals.

Jonathan

[toontra]

I'm sorry if I'm not explaining this well. I'm not saying that anything that the courts have decided is wrong under the current system. I think that the system is wrong: politicians shouldn't have these powers over individuals.

Jonathan

Fair enough, but that would need resolving in another place at another time.

[Jdsk]

Thanks. But to me this sounds a like great time to discuss it. As you pointed out this is an unusual set of circumstances, and the problems with the current system will rarely attract so much attention.

Jonathan

[thirdcrank]

It has occurred to me that I should have made clearer my point about a written constitution. I followed the link above - posted in response to my mention of a written constitution - and this is how it begins:-

Every time there is some new constitutional calamity in the United Kingdom, and they have been rather common in this era of Brexit and Dominic Cummings, a similarly common response from anyone progressive or liberal is to ritually demand a “written” constitution. And that is usually all that is said on the subject, as if such a demand is sufficient in itself as a reaction to what has gone wrong.

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/maga ... ent-courts

I did not intend to demand a "written" constitution, merely to point out that the role of the courts, especially the appeal courts and more especially the Supreme Court have a somewhat different role than they would have if we had one.

Perhaps the most conspicuous national constitution is the US one and we can see how that affects the judiciary. In particular, appeals at the highest level seem decided on the political views of justices who seem to have been appointed on the basis of their political views.

AIUI, the theory is that our system is able to develop / evolve in tune with society. The problem with that is perhaps that not everyone is likely to be happy with the direction of travel.

Back to David Allen Green, linked above as a critic of the Supreme Court's decisions in this case I fined this before he launches of on a thinly-veiled attack on the integrity of the members of the Supreme Court.

This morning the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom handed down its decision in the appeal case of Shamima Begum.

The judgment is detailed and lengthy, dealing with three distinct appeals, and is 137 paragraphs long.

With a decision of this scope and complexity one can only form indicative impressions on the day it is made public.

The decision will take time to digest and to comprehend.

But.

That said, and with the proviso that immediate impressions can often be dispelled, here are some views from the perspective of a liberal commentator on law and policy.

https://davidallengreen.com/2021/02/not ... d-kingdom/

[Jdsk]

I did not intend to demand a "written" constitution, merely to point out that the role of the courts, especially the appeal courts and more especially the Supreme Court have a somewhat different role than they would have if we had one.

I'd like to see fair bit of constitutional reform, and writing it down one place seems obvious. But experts that I respect repeatedly say that that isn't very important.

Jonathan

[Stevek76]

Because making exceptions to the rule of law just because the law is believed to be inadequate or circumstances extraordinary is a very dangerous path to start down. Just look at the history of almost every dictatorship & autocracy. Almost every wannabe autocracy & dictatorship starts off eroding individual liberties by doing so with the camouflage of doing it against people such as alleged criminals of awful crimes who almost everyone can see is blatantly guilty. Too much of the population is unfortunately caught up with the hang em & flog em rhetoric that they fail to notice their own liberties were erased at the same time.

As it is, she will face a number of terror offenses if she returns, some of those committed as an adult by the sounds of things. The sentences for these are not short, and even on release there are numerous other powers for police to re-arrest and the courts to detain those who are (edit: didn't finish this) a threat to society.

Those urging for the exercise of due legal process? The supreme court have made their decision - sounds reasonable to me.

Well I think there's two points there. First, a fairly large number of legal experts don't think it was a good decision and have set out well argued reasoning as to why that is.

Secondly, if we conclude it was the correct decision then there is ample space to criticise the UK's constitutional setup as being rather dictator friendly/authoritarian. A major feature in any liberal democracy (and I use liberal in the sense of the rights of the individual vs the state, not the 'lefty' nature the word appears to have garnered in the USA) is the separation of powers. For a minister to be able to unilaterally exercise powers and for the reasoning behind those decisions to not be challengeable by the individuals affected in court are features of an autocratic state, not a democracy. The government's desire to water down judicial reviews should be noted here. Nothing new of course, plenty of previous UK governments have attempted to erode the inconvenience of having to do stuff lawfully, however this present government appears to be one of the worst cases yet, I suspect more because it's extremely lazy, inept and incompetent than any real dictatorial ambitions, however that's not a reason to accept it.

[Jdsk]

A major feature in any liberal democracy (and I use liberal in the sense of the rights of the individual vs the state, not the 'lefty' nature the word appears to have garnered in the USA) is the separation of powers. For a minister to be able to unilaterally exercise powers and for the reasoning behind those decisions to not be challengeable by the individuals affected in court are features of an autocratic state, not a democracy. The government's desire to water down judicial reviews should be noted here. Nothing new of course, plenty of previous UK governments have attempted to erode the inconvenience of having to do stuff lawfully, however this present government appears to be one of the worst cases yet, I suspect more because it's extremely lazy, inept and incompetent than any real dictatorial ambitions, however that's not a reason to accept it.

Agreed, x4 (I think).

Jonathan

[thirdcrank]

Speaking from the giddy heights of having ploughed through the whole Supreme Court judgments in these three linked cases, my first point would be that they are set out with clarity and with a logic I think I can understand.

Governing a large society is never going to be easy and nobody has found Utopia.

If a society is a democracy, then the wishes of the majority should prevail with a system for protecting the rights of the minorities and individuals. That's always going to be particularly difficult if the activities of the minority or an individual are perceived to threaten the rights of others.

There's a danger with judgments like these of looking at the decision then working backwards to support or criticise it.

Daily Mail readers have been disparaged above, but there's nothing I can see to suggest that readers of, say, the Guardian have any greater right to influence the government.

(I've never been a regular Mail reader and I gave up on the Guardian 50+ years ago.)

[Vorpal]

I did not intend to demand a "written" constitution, merely to point out that the role of the courts, especially the appeal courts and more especially the Supreme Court have a somewhat different role than they would have if we had one.

I'd like to see fair bit of constitutional reform, and writing it down one place seems obvious. But experts that I respect repeatedly say that that isn't very important.

Jonathan

IMO, the problem is not the means. That is, writing down a constitution, or dealing with reform by legislative means are both acceptable, but they require that parliament first acknowledge that there is a problem. I see little evidence that that can occur under either the current government, or a Labour government.

[thirdcrank]

AIUI, the point being made by DAG as linked above is that a written constitution is not the answer; you just need the right sort of judges.

Let's remember, that until quite recently, the manner of appointing judges inevitably tended to slow social change. More recently, that's been changed, but only to the extent that a successful career in English law tends to be an easier path for the socially privileged.

[Oldjohnw]

The simple fact is that she has not had due process. She has been charged with nothing and found guilty of nothing. If she is guilty of terrorism she could be locked away for a very long time.