Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tony Baldry and Lord Garnier

Tuesday 18th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

4. On how many occasions decisions by Ministers have been overturned on judicial review in the last five years.

[The Solicitor-General (Mr Edward Garnier)]

Figures for the number of occasions on which decisions by Ministers have been overturned on judicial review in whole or in part over the last five years are not held centrally, and such information could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

[Tony Baldry]

Well, there have clearly been quite a number. Does not the Solicitor-General’s response highlight the fact that the concept and reality of parliamentary sovereignty are often misunderstood and that, increasingly, the last word on what Parliament has decided will not be determined here, but by the judges on the other side of Parliament square, in the Supreme Court? The increase in judicial review is a reality that is now part of our constitutional fabric.

[The Solicitor-General]

I do not think that my hon. Friend, who is an eminent member of the Bar, is at all confused about the concept of parliamentary sovereignty. Nor, if I may say so, is our right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe, who responded to the debate on clause 18 of the European Union Bill last Tuesday.

Judicial review has increasingly become part of the legal armoury since the second world war. Ministers, whether of the present Government or the last, are not above the law, and it is for our independent judiciary to arbitrate, through judicial review cases, in disputes between the citizen and the state. The courts apply the laws enacted by Parliament, and Parliament can make, amend and repeal legislation as it thinks fit.