A post by David Allen Green from last year that prefigures the political landscape of today:
… all this statutory output is subject to the tiresome jurisdiction of the courts — the High Court will quash delegated legislation and use “human rights” jurisprudence to interpret the word of parliament out of recognition. Something must be done.
So this Act is a modest proposal for our legislators and public officials. Once it is passed, no other legislation will ever be necessary and the meddlesome courts will be neutered. This would be a Good Thing.
Let’s start with Section 1:
“The Crown shall have the power to do anything, and nothing a Minister of the Crown does will be ultra vires.”
That should shut up the High Court for a while with their judicial review decisions.
But adding a second section to the Act will make sure that Ministers will act in the interests of all of us. So for the avoidance of doubt, Section 2 provides:
“The power given by Section 1 of this Act shall include the banning of things by any Minister of the Crown.”
But what things can be banned? Well, here’s Section 3:
“The things to be banned referred to in Section 2 of this Act shall be the things which a Minister of the Crown says are bad for us.”
Which in turn leads us to Section 4:
“What is bad for us for the purposes of Section 3 shall be determined by a Minister of the Crown with regard either to (a) headlines in the tabloid press of the day and/or (b) the headlines the Minister of the Crown would like to see in the tabloid press tomorrow.”
Section 5 will then provide:
“Any person
(a) voicing opposition to a determination made under Section 4 of this Act; or
(b) acting in breach of a ban made under Section 1 of this Act, shall be deemed to not care about the children and/or to be soft on terrorism.”
The Act should also include the following power at Section 6 so that any emerging issues can be addressed:
“In the event something must be done, a Minister may at his or her discretion choose a thing to do, and the thing chosen shall be deemed as the something that must be done.”
This discretionary power, however, is subject to Section 7:
“The thing chosen under Section 6 shall not have any rational or proportionate relationship to any intended objective.”
The way a lot of ministers carry on, you’d think this act had already been promulgated…
