International Law

Danger ! Draft Constitutional Renewal Bill Part 6 tries to remove even the limited constitutional safeguards of the "destroy Parliament" Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006

We were going to comment initially on the

Draft Governance of Britain - Constitutional Renewal Bill (.pdf 98 pages)

regarding the welcome plan to repeal sections 132 to 138 of the Serious Organised Crime Act 2005, which has chilled free speech and freedom of assembly in the over large Designated Area around Parliament Square and Millbank and Whitehall etc. - see the Parliament Protest blog

This repeal appears prominently as Part 1 Clause 1 of the draft Bill, however, any joy at this proposed return to the status quo ante, is marred by Part 6 of the Bill,

It looks as if we will have to again go through all the fuss and lobbying that we saw over the wretched Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006, the previous attempt by this Labour Government to neuter Parliament by Order of a Minister.

See the Save Parliament website as a reminder of the dangers to our Parliamentary democracy from the executive branch of Government, which seem to be looming, yet again.

Part 6
FINAL PROVISION 43 Power to make consequential provision

(1) A Minister o the Crown, or two or more Ministers of the Crown acting jointly, may by order make such provision as the Minister or Ministers consider appropriate in consequence of this Act.

(2) An order under subsection (1) may --

(a) amend, repeal or revoke any provision made by or under an Act;

(b) include transitional or saving provision.

(3) An order under subsection (1) is to be made by statutory instrument.

(4) A statutory instrument containing an order under subsection (1) which amends or repeals a provision of an Act may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.

(5) A statutory instrument containing an order under subsection (1) which does not amend or repeal a provision of an Act is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.

N.B our original posting missed out the word under from 2 (a) , which appears in the current online version of the .pdf file. We are trying to see if we can recover the previous version of the .pdf file from which we were working, and which struck us as so peculiar and noteworthy at the time.

"under" makes the wording of 2 (a) less awkward, but it does not limit Clause 43 to just this Constitutional Renewal Bill, it still applies to every Act of Parliament.

• Repealing any Sections of any Acts of Parliament i.e. Primary Legislation, will only require the "affirmative resolution procedure".

• Revoking any Sections of any Acts of Parliament i.e. Primary Legislation, will only require the "negative resolution procedure".

• Amending any Sections of any Acts of Parliament i.e. Primary Legislation, seems to require both the "affirmative resolution procedure" and the "negative resolution procedure".
  

What happened to the supposed "super-affirmative procedure" and the whole of the debate in Parliament and in the UK political blogosphere over the wretched and controversial Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006 then ?

Save Parliament - Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill (and other issues)

The abuse of the catch all, excessively broad wording "amend, repeal or revoke any provision made by or an Act" means that even the Constitutional Acts like Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights 1689, Habeas Corpus, the European Communities Act, the Human Rights Act, the Civil Contingencies Act etc. can all be repealed or amended without the need for a full debate, or for new Primary Legislation, simply by Order of a Minister.

Full post as published by Spy Blog on March 26, 2008 (boomark / email).