Abolition of Parliament Act

[Annie]

Please spread the word - this is frightening.

Annie


http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2006/02/uk-bill-amounts-to-aboli shing.php
Monday, February 27, 2006

UK bill amounts to abolishing Parliament, warn Cambridge law professors
Alexandria Samuel at 11:00 AM ET



[JURIST] Six law professors at Cambridge University have warned that an innocuous-sounding bill now going through Parliament would give UK government ministers the power to abolish jury trials, place citizens under house arrest, and rewrite the law on nationality and immigration, all without Parliamentary consent. In a letter [text] published Sunday in the Times of London, the scholars urged MPs to take another at the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill [text], which has already received a second hearing and could be adopted as early as next month, and "recognize the dangers of what is being proposed before it is too late." In the name of enabling ministers to cut regulations for business, the bill provides in clause 1 that:
A Minister of the Crown may by order make provision for either or both of the following purposes: a) reforming legislation; b) implementing recommendations of any one or more of the United Kingdom Law Commissions, with or without changes
Supporters of the bill maintain that the power given to ministers is slight, and note limitations such as a restriction on new crimes invented by ministers, and the prohibition against the creation of new taxes. But in a separate op-ed [text] in The Times, David Howarth, a Reader in Law at Cambridge and also the Liberal Democrat MP for the area, took another view, noting that "All ministers will have to do is propose an order, wait a few weeks and, voila , the law is changed.":
The Government claims that there is nothing to worry about. The powers in the Bill, it says, will not be used for "controversial" matters. But there is nothing in the Bill that restricts its use to "uncontroversial" issues. The minister is asking us to trust him, and, worse, to trust all his colleagues and all their successors. No one should be trusted with such power.

As James Madison gave warning in The Federalist Papers, we should remember when handing out political power that "enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm". This Bill should make one doubt whether they are at the helm now.
The legislative proposal comes at a time when British jurists of various political stripes are becoming increasingly concerned [JURIST report] with undue extensions of power by the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair, now in its third term. The Epoch Times has more.

[Annie]

A update from the Save Parliament Campaign

Annie


Hi everyone,

Welcome to the fourth Save Parliament bulletin, and if you've only just
joined us, welcome to the campaign! We have a lot to tell you about!

This is the latest update on the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill
(aka Abolition of Parliament Bill). For more information and constantly
updated list of resources, visit the site at
http//www.saveparliament.org.uk and in particular, the blog:
http://www.saveparliament.org.uk/campaign/blog.php.



What just happened?

After pushing the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill through the
Committee Stage without changes in March, the government conceded that
this was a very important bill. They made significant changes, and
allowed two days for debate. This was still not enough time to air all the
objections.

After our initial optimism, we have gone over it carefully, and decided
that it's not much better than before. For example, the Bill still
allows the government to rewrite any law, provided they can claim that at
least one of the things they are doing will 'remove a burden'. It would
still be possible for jury service or Habeus Corpus to be removed by
order. Many of our complaints still haven't been dealt with.

You can look at the new Bill at:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldbills/109/06109.i- ii.html

Don't be fooled by its brevity. Section 1(7)(a) says: "Provision may be
made... [for] conferring functions on any person (including functions
of legislating or functions relating to the charging of fees)".

This short sentence is all it takes to give ministers the power to
appoint anyone they choose to make law. This has been described by some
MP's as "sub-delegation" but it is no such thing. The minister can confer
a power to write laws which they would not have a power to do
themselves without Parliament's consent. This is an entirely new and
extraordinary executive privilege. To make this point clear, see the vote they
held during the debate where the MPs voted against a new clause that would
have made someone, who had been given the power to rewrite the law,
accountable to Parliament.

http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/division.php?date=2006-05-16&number=238&d isplay=allvotes



What can you do?

There is no way this Bill will get through the House of Lords in its
present state, since it appears that members of the upper chamber tend to
read what's before them, and take as much time as they like. The Lords
will make changes to this Bill. This Bill will return to the Commons.
The MPs will be asked to revert these changes by voting.

The changes are likely to be similar to what had been proposed and
rejected during this two day debate of the Bill. Your MP may have voted for
or against those changes. We have a list of the votes that were made by
MPs on the Bill so far, and the direction they would have voted had
they wished to save Parliamentary scrutiny.

http://www.saveparliament.org.uk/campaign/report-stage.php

Using the link above, you can find your MP by entering your postcode,
and see exactly how they performed on this handy table. (Technical note:
the policy "abstains" for votes that replaced one clause with another,
or on something that was irrelevant.) You are encouraged to click on
the individual votes and read them, and check the corresponding debates
on theyworkforyou.com. To get a flavour of how it happened, check out
the live blogging of the debate on the 16th.
(http://www.saveparliament.org.uk/campaign/liveblogging.php)

Now is a good time to write a quick letter to your MP, after they have
declared their vote and can't deny what they've done, and before they
are given another chance when the Bill comes back from the House of
Lords. You can use the http://writetothem.com webpage, or send it by mail.
You can be quite specific in your letter, and it depends on how your MP
voted.

If your MP scored above 85%, they are completely with us, and are
either Conservatives or Liberal Democrats (sadly we haven't managed to bring
any Labour MP's fully over to our side yet!) Write a letter to thank
them, if you like.

If your MP scored above 57%, they are also with us, but may have missed
many of the votes. If they were "absent" in between votes at which they
were present, they probably abstained. (They don't record a difference
between absence and abstention.) You can check a vote they abstained on
and if you feel they should have voted for it, ask them why they
didn't.

Almost all other MPs voted against Parliamentary scrutiny, though check
their comparison table because they might have missed all the
interesting votes, or mixed stuff up like Jeremy Corbyn MP.

In particular, if your MP scored below 20%, then there's work to do.
Pick a vote and write a short letter telling them your feelings, asking
for their justification, and requesting that they consider voting
against these powers when they get a second chance.

The interesting ones to consider are Division 232, where your MP could
have voted against the requirement that ministers act "reasonably";
Division 234, where your MP could have voted against the requirement that
ministers had to implement law commission reports "without changes", so
they couldn't cherry-pick them; Division 238, mentioned above; and
Division 240, where your MP could have voted against giving the committee
overseeing an order complete freedom to reject it.



Community Forum

On one final note, we've added a forum to our site where you can post
your MPs responses and talk about what you've been doing to campaign
against the bill with other supporters.
http://www.saveparliament.org.uk/community/




Cheers,

Phil Peter
Director, Save Parliament
http://www.saveparliament.org.uk

[Reflecter]

Great post. Scary issue. This needs major attention.

Regards