Author Archives: Sara Ogilvie

Sara Ogilvie

The Independent View: Why Liberal Democrat MPs should reject Government’s power-grabbing judicial review proposals

By Sara Ogilvie | Mon 1st December 2014 - 10:25 am

Undemocratic, unnecessary and unfair, over the past eleven months the Government’s crude attempts to curtail judicial review have been the subject of intense parliamentary debate. And yet today, as MPs are once again called to vote on the proposals, the government is attempting to pull off an unusual parliamentary feat: disregarding fierce cross-party criticism to make its proposals worse, rather than better.

Judicial review is the legal mechanism by which individuals and organisations can ask a court to check whether a public authority has acted lawfully. The powers of the court in a judicial review are limited, but in a modern democracy, where great power is concentrated in the hands of the executive, it is one of the great and vital levelers. 

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Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | 16 Comments
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  • Mick Taylor
    David Allan, you build a whole argument on something I didn't say. The issue with electoral reform is who can you trust? I only made the point that you CAN trus...
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    The value here is what we learn, not just where we finish. This is a constituency with a lot of independent businesses and a lot of urban liberal-minded voters,...
  • Hywel
    "I agree. We are not in the running for this seat." But as pointed out in the OP, the Lib Dems are in second place in only 27 seats. You could wait the whol...
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    "Sorry Jana, but the only people we can trust to deliver electoral reform are ourselves." Sorry Mick Taylor, but the Lib Dems acting alone don't stand a sno...
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