Law According To A King

In the United Kingdom, our judiciary is completely unelected, sparking accusations of cronyism, a lack of democratic legitimacy, and corruption, but when compared to countries and regions where the courts are elected, the UK's system stands out as a remarkably well-oiled machine. In the US, however, judges are more commonly elected at the state and local level (the federal judiciary remains wholly appointed), and the US is, unsurprisingly, seen across the world as a dysfunctional political system - leading to the characterisation of US-style democracy as "America's deadliest export" by the American journalist and author William Blum. But what impact does the election of judges have on the integrity of the judiciary, and does it actually hurt democracy as much as we might think? Politicisation of the judiciary The main argument in favour of an appointed bench is that it holds back the growing tide of politicisation. Now, of course, this doesn't mean that appointed ...

In Tennessee Williams's play 'A Streetcar Named Desire' the protagonist Blanche DuBois finds herself living with her sister and brother-in-law after she loses her house and livelihood. Blanche, throughout the play, slowly descends into madness, as she is abused by her sister's husband and haunted by the death of her former lover. At the end, when she is taken away to a mental institution, Blanche softly says to the doctor "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers." As a woman who has spent her life hounded by the stark injustices of her situation, Blanche has depended on the kindness of strangers to offer her comfort where there is none, a home when she has lost her own, a job when she has been dismissed, and love where she cannot find some, but it is this same dependence that allows Blanche to be inherently vulnerable to those she depends on: the lover who kills himself, breaking her heart; the sister who gives her away to a hospital; the brother-i...

What is the rule of law? In my opinion, it does not exist. It simply cannot exist. There are too many contradictions, too many gaps, and too many criteria that even the most utopian society could not declare itself subject to the rule of law. But to disregard it, we must first understand what it claims to be. Nick Barber wrote that the rule of law “asks what it means to be governed by law, rather than men.” The first societies decided their own unofficial laws based on the ideas of their leaders, whereas the first civilisations decided their laws based on the ideas of their people, with the advent of agriculture 10,000 years ago. For a period of about 2 million years, hominid groups (primarily hunter-gatherers) appeared to have distributed justice based on the views of a council of elders, or often a simple individual Their laws were likely based on superstition, natural ideas of justice, and the hocus-pocus of the leaders themselves. When civilisations were developed, while brutalis...

The commerce clause of the United States Constitution is one of its most powerful and least understood. As the third clause of Art.1 s.8 of the Constitution, it provides Congress with the power "to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes," and for the purposes of this discussion, we will be looking mainly at interstate commerce, as this is the part that impacts most on the domestic agendas of (primarily Democratic) presidents throughout the centuries. Before we dive into the case law on this clause, it is essential first to understand the three distinct eras of jurisprudence, where we see the commerce clause interpreted restrictively, then expand rapidly after the New Deal, before regressing to its position a century earlier as the 1990s draw to a close. Before the New Deal During this era, several tests were developed to determine when the Court would intervene in the commerce clause.  The 'substantial ec...

The US Supreme Court is likely better known to readers than any other court on the planet. Its hyper-politicised confirmation hearings, nation-changing judgments, and larger-than-life characters have thrown the Court to the forefront of national and international news and consciousness. Whereas in the UK, gay marriage could be attributed to the support of the Prime Minister David Cameron and his coalition partners in the Liberal Democrats, in the US, it is attributed to the Court's 'liberal' wing and the swing-Justice Kennedy - just one example of the difference between the two systems. Nevertheless, whilst Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Brett Kavanaugh may have captured your attention, there are still seven more judges on the Court that you need to know. To illustrate their approach to constitutional interpretation, I have included a very brief analysis of their positions on four key issues: abortion rights, LGBTQ+ rights, executive power, and campaign finance reform. ...

The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom is far less known than the US Supreme Court, and is far less politicised in its appointment mechanisms, and so the Justices who make the most important judicial decisions in the country are often forgotten, even by law students. As such, I have written brief biographies of the twelve Justices who make up the Supreme Court, and listed some of their more famous judgments, which I urge you to read to gain an understanding of how they think and their judicial philosophies. So, here goes...  Lady Brenda Hale  Hale became President of the Supreme Court in September 2017, succeeding Lord Neuberger, after a distinguished career as a judge and an academic. She sat on the High Court for five years, the Court of Appeal for a further five, and then joined the House of Lords Judicial Committee (the precursor to the Supreme Court) in 2004.  A Cambridge graduate, Hale mostly practised in family and social welfare law, teaching these su...

Yesterday, the UK Supreme Court ruled on what is possibly the most important constitutional law case in a generation. In the case of R (Miller) v Prime Minister [2019] UKSC 41, the court handed down a judgment that we will be seeing the reverberations of for decades to come. It is an intensely political case, but the court were keen to set aside partisanship and rule simply on the law as they saw it. You may recall, a few weeks ago when Johnson announced the prorogation of Parliament, I wrote a post saying that it was a legal exercise of the prerogative powers, but evidently I was too hasty in making this judgment. Lady Hale, the President of the court, handed down a unanimous judgment that declared the prorogation was illegal, and thus, in effect, didn't happen at all. But let's look at how they came to this decision, and the key parts of their judgment... For some background: The UK decided in a referendum in 2016 to leave the EU. Whilst the result was not legally bind...