Judicial Review and Courts Bill

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 25th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The difficulty I have with the right hon. Gentleman’s argument is this: where facts are in dispute, how can a court be expected to rule on a point of law without hearing evidence?

[Sir John Hayes]

The court can take evidence, but what it should not be doing is fishing for further information, of a wider variety, which opens up consideration of the original process, rather than checking whether that process was right and proper; it is a subtle difference but a fundamental one in terms of the change in the way courts have gone about their business.

Our new clause addresses this issue, as the Minister will know. Jonathan Sumption is the judge who perhaps more than any other has set out the proper functions of the courts in relation to Parliament. In his Reith lecture, he said:

“It is the proper function of the Courts to stop governments exceeding or abusing their legal powers.”

That is absolutely what JR should be, but I fear that it is being compromised by the changes that are taking place as a result of judicial activism. So, mindful of the Attorney General’s advice on this and of the fact that the Government clearly are in tune with that advice—otherwise, they would not have introduced this Bill in the first place—I urge them to accept the amendments, in order to make this Bill be as good as it can be. Rather than waiting for another bus to come along, we should get on this one and get to the destination we all seek.