And There Went Hunting

[liadnan]

Well, so comes the ban. I'm glad the government are concentrating on the important things.

It makes no real difference to my life (I don't hunt, though family, a few friends, and people I know from where I grew up do), but I am quite strongly opposed to a ban*. One wonders whether it'll end up as Scotland has, where the only real difference is that the foxes, having been flushed with dogs, are now shot. And just how expensive and effective it'll turn out to be in policing terms. I'm also rather interested, technically as it were, to see whether the argument that the 1949 Parliament Act is void because it was passed under the provisions of its predecessor, the 1911 Parliament Act, actually stands up. Lord Donaldson, former Master of the Rolls, has been banging on about this for some years now (entirely independent of the hunting debate) and it's certainly true that the way the Parliament Acts fit with traditional constitutional theory has never been properly examined. I think the 1949 Act has only been used two or three times before now (the War Crimes Act, which the Lords rejected on the grounds of poor drafting and it being retrospective legislation; the age of consent; and possibly something else). I think the 1911 Act was only ever used, as opposed to threatened, to pass the 1949 Act.

The human rights argument will, I am fairly sure, fail, both in the High Court and in Strasbourg if it gets there: see Whaley.

*I take it as read that all but a handful of you, and all but a handful of my friends in general, disagree with me.

Comments

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

It means that the Lords are not (as I once thought) in breach of the Salisbury Convention by refusing it, though they are sailing somewhat close to the wind.

Labour should be embarrassed to find themselves using the Parliament Act, though, given that they've just reformed the House of Lords...

[liadnan]

If and when we get proper reform of the Upper House I strongly believe it should include a rethink of the Parliament Acts.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Definitely. The Parliament Act is necessary while the Lords is the ridiculous thorn in the side of democracy that it is; if instead we had a democratic second chamber, it would be a gross abberation.