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"Yet again a UK court has ruled the government’s extreme mass surveillance regime unlawful. This judgement tells ministers in crystal clear terms that they are

"Yet again a UK court has ruled the government’s extreme mass surveillance regime unlawful. This judgement tells ministers in crystal clear terms that they are breaching the public’s human rights." So the question then remains...where are the handcuffs?! I ask this question constantly when it comes to government wrongdoing and there is almost never anyone charged with anything. If the government has been acting in a manner that has been found in a court of law to violate human rights, then multiple people should be going to jail. Before you drop the "well now we know for sure - we shouldn't be punitive and punish people who thought they were doing their job properly" crap, think about this. Whenever the government applies a law in a new and untested way against a civilian the case is watched very closely and if that civilian is found guilty they never get the benefit of the "well it's been settled and now we know" argument and get let off lightly. So I argue the same should apply here. The government has grossly violated the rights of citizens on a mass scale and everyone at the top of the food chain involved in these programs should be rotting in a jail cell.

rocqua 9y ago
Because those who wrote the law have cover from parliament passing the law. Who would we be cuffing? Those who drafted the law? Or maybe those who whipped party members into line to vote for the law? In my opinion, people drafting illegal laws is to be expected. It is the responsibility of parliament and the house of lords to keep illegal laws from being enacted. So if we were to cuff anyone, it seems to me it ought to be parliament. For parliament we have a different measure than the courts though. That would be elections! It seems less that wise for the public prosecutor to be able to target members of parliament for how they voted. The solution should be sought in a better democracy. An underlying issue here might be that a majority of voter would actually like to see the constitutional basis for this ruling changed. The Brexit vote could be seen as supporting this. If indeed the electorate wants to get rid of this, there is very little to be done. And that is how a democracy is kind of supposed to work. Sometimes, this makes democracies suck. But like Churchill said, democracy is the worst form of government except for all the other forms we've tried.
shaki-dora 9y ago
Not all trials are criminal. In fact, the vast majority are civil. To expose elected politicians to criminal liability would completely stymie them: laws are routinely struck down for all sorts of reasons, and it would be almost impossible for a single parliamentarian (who usually has a staff of two or three, max) to foresee all challenges. I know this "Snooper's Charter" evokes strong feelings, which makes it a bad example. The courts also have enough power already to make their judgements stick. Roe v. Wade made abortion legal in the US, and it didn't take any jail sentences to make that right a reality, even though roughly 40% of the population are vehemently opposed. To see a particularly crass example that comes close to your fantasy, see Joe Arpaio, one of the very few politicians to actually defy a court long enough to be convicted of criminal charges.
lucozade 9y ago
> Yet again a UK court has ruled the government’s extreme mass surveillance regime unlawful Except that's not what happened. Not legally anyway. What happened is that the Court of Appeal ruled that a Parliamentary Act did not contain sufficient safeguards to be compliant with the Human Rights Act. So there's, at least, 2 problems you've got. One is that it's not, technically, government legislation. It's the Crown's legislation as enacted by Parliament. Secondly, and slightly less importantly, the Court of Appeal isn't the final arbiter here. One can either argue that it's the European Court of Justice or, and this is where it gets fun, Parliament. Now, you can of course make a case for banging the Queen away. It's not like that hasn't been tried in the past with some of her predecessors. Or you could make a cases for locking up some or all of both Houses of Parliament. Or they could enact an amendment to correct the problem. Of course, if it turns out that anyone was actually affected by the legislation as it stands then that should be dealt with as a matter of urgency. While the internet happily chunters on.
- mtgx 9y ago
  The ECJ has ruled less awful laws than this to be invalid under the fundamental charter of rights. I wouldn't be worried about them. It's the UK courts you have to worry about when deciding such cases, especially when the UK doesn't even have a constitution and they kind of play it by ear.
  - lucozade 9y ago
    Not sure a constitution necessarily helps. In this case, the Human Rights legislation is acting like a constitution in the sense that it's a benchmark that laws are being held to. A constitution can sometimes be a fairly negative thing. You regularly see US decisions being made against the Constitution where it blatantly isn't applicable. You rarely (ever?) see SCOTUS saying that the Constitution doesn't apply so it needs to go back to Congress for a more applicable law. In other words a Constitution starts to resemble a religious document that has the answer to every conceivable problem if only a priest can interpret it.
    - di4na 9y ago
Cthulhu_ 9y ago
You kinda hint at the answer in your post already - you keep referring to "the government", but who? Is there one or a few people responsible for directing others to perform the unlawful surveillance? Or are they too protected by some mechanic? The legal state being "unclear" probably also means that those people can't face judgment for continuing doing it while the judges were still out.
- lucb1e 9y ago
  Well somebody or some bodies stood for the law and approved it. They needn't all go to jail or it would become a neat implement for beheading a government, but allowing them to create such laws without any repercussions is wrong.
  - rapala 9y ago
    Umm... that is exactly how an parliamentary democracy works. The parliament can enact any law. Yes, many such systems contain laws that overrule all other laws and are often harder to change. These are often called constitutions. But I can't recall any constitution that could not be changed.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >You kinda hint at the answer in your post already - you keep referring to "the government", but who? Is there one or a few people responsible for directing others to perform the unlawful surveillance? Yes. Those that signed related orders. It doesn't even matter if they get them all, just some high enough would be enough to deter others.
  - rapala 9y ago
    The Human Rigths Act specifically does not grant the courts the possibility of not following Acts of Parliament when the too conflict. The courts can only give an declaration of incombability which they have done. This is how an Parliamentary sovereignty works.
    - 9y ago
dalbasal 9y ago
Well... These are the (large) cracks in rule of law that no one has ever managed to close entirely. It's dangerous to criminalise political tier decisions and actions, just like it's dangerous to prosecute former politicians. It harms the ability to preserve peaceful transitions. Criminals or not. First, it opens a door to political purging. Also incentives to use power in order to remain free is just too big.
- wu-ikkyu 9y ago
  It appears your argument against prosecuting criminal politicians boils down to being afraid of their power and what would happen if you did? Seems like a weak argument from authority.
  - shaki-dora 9y ago
    "Argument from authority" means something entirely different, although your use here is somewhat amusing. You're also misunderstanding the argument: It's not the powerful politicians that are frightening, it's the powerless. By prosecuting (former) politicians, you're not creating disincentives against abuse of power, you're disincentivising loss of power. That's the hard-to-accept logic behind the mostly deferential treatment the Nixons and Mugabes of the world today get after they lost power.
    - dalbasal 9y ago
      Exactly my meaning, just stated more clearly :)
    - wu-ikkyu 9y ago
      This is still a weak excuse for allowing politicians to break the law. It's like saying we shouldn't go after child molesters because they might kill the police so they can keep molesting children. >By prosecuting (former) politicians, you're not creating disincentives against abuse of power Do you think prosecuting people who committed crimes creates a disincentive against crime? >you're disincentivising loss of power. The same could be said for (former) leaders of drug cartels and mafia bosses, but we still go after them (as well as the current ones), don't we? Loss of power is already by default highly disincentivized, which is why people want to hold on to it for as long as they can. It's also why we enforce term limits and have checks and balances. However those checks and balances are quite toothless when you elevate politicians above the law. "We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." -Aesop
dangerlibrary 9y ago
In the case of the Flint water debacle, there were several indictments. It's been a really positive change at the state and local level. It empowers the career experts to say to the political appointees and elected officials: "no, I'm not going to jail over this." https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/us/flint-water-crisis-manslaughter.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/us/flint-water-crisis-man... https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/flint-water-crisis/2017/06/14/flint-water-crisis-charges/397425001/ https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/flint-water-... http://michiganradio.org/post/3-years-later-flint-water-crisis-has-changed-how-other-cities-deal-infrastructure http://michiganradio.org/post/3-years-later-flint-water-cris...
- MaxBarraclough 9y ago
  > It empowers the career experts to say to the political appointees and elected officials: "no, I'm not going to jail over this." Surely the point is that You could go to jail for this.
  - ivanbakel 9y ago
    Which is why the experts can use that now very real threat to refuse to carry out certain political commands. You have to have the possibility of going to jail in order to refuse to go to jail.
dmix 9y ago
The courts didn't technically rule that it violated a particular persons rights, only that the law lacked safeguards to prevent such an abuse. That quote was by a Labour minister not the judge. But otherwise I agree with holding politicians accountable, as this has no doubt already broken at least a few peoples rights.
- turc1656 9y ago
  I disagree. The judges held that it was "inconsistent with EU law". That means it is illegal because it goes against the (higher) EU law. They held that the reason it was inconsistent was because it lacked "prior review by a court or independent administrative authority" - basically, due process. It seems clear from the language of the judges that rights were violated without due process. That's no minor offense.
  - rapala 9y ago
    > That means it is illegal because it goes against the (higher) EU law. It actually does not mean that. The courts cannot ignore an Act of Parliament even if it conflicts with the Human Rigths Act but can o ly give an declaration of incombability which they have done.
f_allwein 9y ago
For what it's worth, the state government of Bavaria was recently fined 4.000 Euro by a Bavarian court for failing to take action on air quality: [DE] https://www.br.de/nachrichten/oberbayern/inhalt/deutsche-umwelthilfe-gegen-freistaat-verwaltungsgericht-hat-entschieden100.html https://www.br.de/nachrichten/oberbayern/inhalt/deutsche-umw... . Apparently, if they don't pay, the minister for the environment may be arrested...
hippich 9y ago
well... whom you would like to send to jail? actual clerk, his/her boss, department head? queen? whole government? (i would love this one :)) Government is unique entity - it is a entity 'too big to fail'. And we all know how entities that can not die act.
- turc1656 9y ago
  I want the people at the top of the agencies that engage in these activities to be charged. I guarantee you when they set up these programs they consulted legal council and they were warned of the possible legal issues that could arise. They chose to ignore those warnings. If by some incredible chance they did not seek council, they were being grossly negligent in carrying out their duties, which resulted in violations of the law and harm to individuals through violation of their human rights. That (gross negligence) is also a crime, at least in the US where I am, so it doesn't matter how you look at it. Those at the top should be held to account for these monumentally bad decisions which have now been deemed illegal.
rebuilder 9y ago
The people writing poor laws are supposed to be held accountable by the population in a process called an election. If that process is not working, it seems unlikely any legislation to punish lawmakers will fix it - they make the laws, after all.
- chriswarbo 9y ago
  The problem with having a couple of elections per decade is that they lump all decisions (economic, legal, home, foreign, etc.) into one. Also, the UK's first-past-the-post system has given us a two-party system (Labour and Conservative), which makes elections mostly useless for any issues those two parties agree on, such as surveillance (AFAICT the trajectory of the current surveillance state was set in motion under Blair, and later Brown). When the Liberal Democrats entered a much-maligned coalition with the Conservatives in 2010, they at least managed to prevent the "Snoopers Charter" getting passed. At the next election, the Conservatives got a majority and passed it as the "Investigatory Powers Act 2016".
EnderMB 9y ago
In theory, wouldn't it require someone challenging the government in a court of law? It sounds like this kind of thing is very common, but because there's no challenge to these crimes the government just carry on as normal. I know no more about the law than the average person, but surely a large-enough group of people, backed by someone with legal/political pull, could challenge the government?
ixtli 9y ago
Handcuffs for legislators are just as rare as handcuffs for CEOs. At a certain point one is left to conclude that handcuffs are inversely proportional to the amount of capital you control.
whywhywhywhy 9y ago
In the UK the police can knock on your door for an offensive Tweet. If what happens on the internet has such serious implications then so should abusing power on the internet like this.
PJDK 9y ago
What you're asking for is nothing like what this process is designed to be. The Human Rights Act is designed as a way to allow courts to push back on certain kinds of legislation - this ruling is a normal part of the legislative process not any indication of criminal wrong doing by anyone.
- turc1656 9y ago
  I am not a UK citizen so I can't say with any level of certainty what the process was designed to be. However, a few things seem pretty obvious. 1) The judges said this was "inconsistent with EU law". That means it is illegal because it goes against the (higher) EU law. This is equivalent to how Federal law trumps State laws in the US and State law trumps local/municipal law. If it is inconsistent with EU law, then it is a violation of that law, plain and simple. 2) The judges also held the ruling in #1 based on lack of "prior review by a court or independent administrative authority". That's the US equivalent to what we call due process. So rights were being violated without due process. That's pretty serious. I think you are making the water murkier by trying to imagine what you think the process is/should be. The fact remains that the law has been violated on a mass scale, by government, and this has now been adjudicated in a court of law.
  - PJDK 9y ago
    What is happening is that the court has decided law X is not consistent with law Y. In the UK system, when this happens the courts can order Parliament to review law X to make amendments so the laws are consistent. The Government can choose to appeal this to a higher court or they can choose to amend the law. (Incidentally this differs from the US system in that the court doesn't say what the new law should be - but rather says that a section of the law is invalid in a certain way and must be changed - a job then left to the politicians). No law has been disobeyed at all here - rather two perfectly valid laws have been created that are in disagreement, and the court is ordering that the disagreement be resolved in favour of one.
dlwdlw 9y ago
Reminds me of bad actors in large companies. You'd think it is beneficial to remove them as fast as possible, but in any sort of bubbled environment, extrication is not easy. Especially when the bad decisions are a result of the existing system and the said actor in tandem. (That is, that person may be "good" in another system)

rocqua 9y ago

Because those who wrote the law have cover from parliament passing the law. Who would we be cuffing? Those who drafted the law? Or maybe those who whipped party members into line to vote for the law? In my opinion, people drafting illegal laws is to be expected. It is the responsibility of parliament and the house of lords to keep illegal laws from being enacted. So if we were to cuff anyone, it seems to me it ought to be parliament. For parliament we have a different measure than the courts though. That would be elections! It seems less that wise for the public prosecutor to be able to target members of parliament for how they voted. The solution should be sought in a better democracy. An underlying issue here might be that a majority of voter would actually like to see the constitutional basis for this ruling changed. The Brexit vote could be seen as supporting this. If indeed the electorate wants to get rid of this, there is very little to be done. And that is how a democracy is kind of supposed to work. Sometimes, this makes democracies suck. But like Churchill said, democracy is the worst form of government except for all the other forms we've tried.

shaki-dora 9y ago

Not all trials are criminal. In fact, the vast majority are civil. To expose elected politicians to criminal liability would completely stymie them: laws are routinely struck down for all sorts of reasons, and it would be almost impossible for a single parliamentarian (who usually has a staff of two or three, max) to foresee all challenges. I know this "Snooper's Charter" evokes strong feelings, which makes it a bad example. The courts also have enough power already to make their judgements stick. Roe v. Wade made abortion legal in the US, and it didn't take any jail sentences to make that right a reality, even though roughly 40% of the population are vehemently opposed. To see a particularly crass example that comes close to your fantasy, see Joe Arpaio, one of the very few politicians to actually defy a court long enough to be convicted of criminal charges.

lucozade 9y ago

> Yet again a UK court has ruled the government’s extreme mass surveillance regime unlawful Except that's not what happened. Not legally anyway. What happened is that the Court of Appeal ruled that a Parliamentary Act did not contain sufficient safeguards to be compliant with the Human Rights Act. So there's, at least, 2 problems you've got. One is that it's not, technically, government legislation. It's the Crown's legislation as enacted by Parliament. Secondly, and slightly less importantly, the Court of Appeal isn't the final arbiter here. One can either argue that it's the European Court of Justice or, and this is where it gets fun, Parliament. Now, you can of course make a case for banging the Queen away. It's not like that hasn't been tried in the past with some of her predecessors. Or you could make a cases for locking up some or all of both Houses of Parliament. Or they could enact an amendment to correct the problem. Of course, if it turns out that anyone was actually affected by the legislation as it stands then that should be dealt with as a matter of urgency. While the internet happily chunters on.

mtgx 9y ago
The ECJ has ruled less awful laws than this to be invalid under the fundamental charter of rights. I wouldn't be worried about them. It's the UK courts you have to worry about when deciding such cases, especially when the UK doesn't even have a constitution and they kind of play it by ear.
- lucozade 9y ago
  Not sure a constitution necessarily helps. In this case, the Human Rights legislation is acting like a constitution in the sense that it's a benchmark that laws are being held to. A constitution can sometimes be a fairly negative thing. You regularly see US decisions being made against the Constitution where it blatantly isn't applicable. You rarely (ever?) see SCOTUS saying that the Constitution doesn't apply so it needs to go back to Congress for a more applicable law. In other words a Constitution starts to resemble a religious document that has the answer to every conceivable problem if only a priest can interpret it.
  - di4na 9y ago

Cthulhu_ 9y ago

You kinda hint at the answer in your post already - you keep referring to "the government", but who? Is there one or a few people responsible for directing others to perform the unlawful surveillance? Or are they too protected by some mechanic? The legal state being "unclear" probably also means that those people can't face judgment for continuing doing it while the judges were still out.

lucb1e 9y ago
Well somebody or some bodies stood for the law and approved it. They needn't all go to jail or it would become a neat implement for beheading a government, but allowing them to create such laws without any repercussions is wrong.
- rapala 9y ago
  Umm... that is exactly how an parliamentary democracy works. The parliament can enact any law. Yes, many such systems contain laws that overrule all other laws and are often harder to change. These are often called constitutions. But I can't recall any constitution that could not be changed.
coldtea 9y ago
>You kinda hint at the answer in your post already - you keep referring to "the government", but who? Is there one or a few people responsible for directing others to perform the unlawful surveillance? Yes. Those that signed related orders. It doesn't even matter if they get them all, just some high enough would be enough to deter others.
- rapala 9y ago
  The Human Rigths Act specifically does not grant the courts the possibility of not following Acts of Parliament when the too conflict. The courts can only give an declaration of incombability which they have done. This is how an Parliamentary sovereignty works.
  - 9y ago

dalbasal 9y ago

Well... These are the (large) cracks in rule of law that no one has ever managed to close entirely. It's dangerous to criminalise political tier decisions and actions, just like it's dangerous to prosecute former politicians. It harms the ability to preserve peaceful transitions. Criminals or not. First, it opens a door to political purging. Also incentives to use power in order to remain free is just too big.

wu-ikkyu 9y ago
It appears your argument against prosecuting criminal politicians boils down to being afraid of their power and what would happen if you did? Seems like a weak argument from authority.
- shaki-dora 9y ago
  "Argument from authority" means something entirely different, although your use here is somewhat amusing. You're also misunderstanding the argument: It's not the powerful politicians that are frightening, it's the powerless. By prosecuting (former) politicians, you're not creating disincentives against abuse of power, you're disincentivising loss of power. That's the hard-to-accept logic behind the mostly deferential treatment the Nixons and Mugabes of the world today get after they lost power.
  - dalbasal 9y ago
    Exactly my meaning, just stated more clearly :)
  - wu-ikkyu 9y ago
    This is still a weak excuse for allowing politicians to break the law. It's like saying we shouldn't go after child molesters because they might kill the police so they can keep molesting children. >By prosecuting (former) politicians, you're not creating disincentives against abuse of power Do you think prosecuting people who committed crimes creates a disincentive against crime? >you're disincentivising loss of power. The same could be said for (former) leaders of drug cartels and mafia bosses, but we still go after them (as well as the current ones), don't we? Loss of power is already by default highly disincentivized, which is why people want to hold on to it for as long as they can. It's also why we enforce term limits and have checks and balances. However those checks and balances are quite toothless when you elevate politicians above the law. "We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." -Aesop

dangerlibrary 9y ago

In the case of the Flint water debacle, there were several indictments. It's been a really positive change at the state and local level. It empowers the career experts to say to the political appointees and elected officials: "no, I'm not going to jail over this." https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/us/flint-water-crisis-manslaughter.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/us/flint-water-crisis-man... https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/flint-water-crisis/2017/06/14/flint-water-crisis-charges/397425001/ https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/flint-water-... http://michiganradio.org/post/3-years-later-flint-water-crisis-has-changed-how-other-cities-deal-infrastructure http://michiganradio.org/post/3-years-later-flint-water-cris...

MaxBarraclough 9y ago
> It empowers the career experts to say to the political appointees and elected officials: "no, I'm not going to jail over this." Surely the point is that You could go to jail for this.
- ivanbakel 9y ago
  Which is why the experts can use that now very real threat to refuse to carry out certain political commands. You have to have the possibility of going to jail in order to refuse to go to jail.

dmix 9y ago

The courts didn't technically rule that it violated a particular persons rights, only that the law lacked safeguards to prevent such an abuse. That quote was by a Labour minister not the judge. But otherwise I agree with holding politicians accountable, as this has no doubt already broken at least a few peoples rights.

turc1656 9y ago
I disagree. The judges held that it was "inconsistent with EU law". That means it is illegal because it goes against the (higher) EU law. They held that the reason it was inconsistent was because it lacked "prior review by a court or independent administrative authority" - basically, due process. It seems clear from the language of the judges that rights were violated without due process. That's no minor offense.
- rapala 9y ago
  > That means it is illegal because it goes against the (higher) EU law. It actually does not mean that. The courts cannot ignore an Act of Parliament even if it conflicts with the Human Rigths Act but can o ly give an declaration of incombability which they have done.

f_allwein 9y ago

For what it's worth, the state government of Bavaria was recently fined 4.000 Euro by a Bavarian court for failing to take action on air quality: [DE] https://www.br.de/nachrichten/oberbayern/inhalt/deutsche-umwelthilfe-gegen-freistaat-verwaltungsgericht-hat-entschieden100.html https://www.br.de/nachrichten/oberbayern/inhalt/deutsche-umw... . Apparently, if they don't pay, the minister for the environment may be arrested...

hippich 9y ago

well... whom you would like to send to jail? actual clerk, his/her boss, department head? queen? whole government? (i would love this one :)) Government is unique entity - it is a entity 'too big to fail'. And we all know how entities that can not die act.

turc1656 9y ago
I want the people at the top of the agencies that engage in these activities to be charged. I guarantee you when they set up these programs they consulted legal council and they were warned of the possible legal issues that could arise. They chose to ignore those warnings. If by some incredible chance they did not seek council, they were being grossly negligent in carrying out their duties, which resulted in violations of the law and harm to individuals through violation of their human rights. That (gross negligence) is also a crime, at least in the US where I am, so it doesn't matter how you look at it. Those at the top should be held to account for these monumentally bad decisions which have now been deemed illegal.

rebuilder 9y ago

The people writing poor laws are supposed to be held accountable by the population in a process called an election. If that process is not working, it seems unlikely any legislation to punish lawmakers will fix it - they make the laws, after all.

chriswarbo 9y ago
The problem with having a couple of elections per decade is that they lump all decisions (economic, legal, home, foreign, etc.) into one. Also, the UK's first-past-the-post system has given us a two-party system (Labour and Conservative), which makes elections mostly useless for any issues those two parties agree on, such as surveillance (AFAICT the trajectory of the current surveillance state was set in motion under Blair, and later Brown). When the Liberal Democrats entered a much-maligned coalition with the Conservatives in 2010, they at least managed to prevent the "Snoopers Charter" getting passed. At the next election, the Conservatives got a majority and passed it as the "Investigatory Powers Act 2016".

EnderMB 9y ago

In theory, wouldn't it require someone challenging the government in a court of law? It sounds like this kind of thing is very common, but because there's no challenge to these crimes the government just carry on as normal. I know no more about the law than the average person, but surely a large-enough group of people, backed by someone with legal/political pull, could challenge the government?

ixtli 9y ago

Handcuffs for legislators are just as rare as handcuffs for CEOs. At a certain point one is left to conclude that handcuffs are inversely proportional to the amount of capital you control.

whywhywhywhy 9y ago

In the UK the police can knock on your door for an offensive Tweet. If what happens on the internet has such serious implications then so should abusing power on the internet like this.

PJDK 9y ago

What you're asking for is nothing like what this process is designed to be. The Human Rights Act is designed as a way to allow courts to push back on certain kinds of legislation - this ruling is a normal part of the legislative process not any indication of criminal wrong doing by anyone.

turc1656 9y ago
I am not a UK citizen so I can't say with any level of certainty what the process was designed to be. However, a few things seem pretty obvious. 1) The judges said this was "inconsistent with EU law". That means it is illegal because it goes against the (higher) EU law. This is equivalent to how Federal law trumps State laws in the US and State law trumps local/municipal law. If it is inconsistent with EU law, then it is a violation of that law, plain and simple. 2) The judges also held the ruling in #1 based on lack of "prior review by a court or independent administrative authority". That's the US equivalent to what we call due process. So rights were being violated without due process. That's pretty serious. I think you are making the water murkier by trying to imagine what you think the process is/should be. The fact remains that the law has been violated on a mass scale, by government, and this has now been adjudicated in a court of law.
- PJDK 9y ago
  What is happening is that the court has decided law X is not consistent with law Y. In the UK system, when this happens the courts can order Parliament to review law X to make amendments so the laws are consistent. The Government can choose to appeal this to a higher court or they can choose to amend the law. (Incidentally this differs from the US system in that the court doesn't say what the new law should be - but rather says that a section of the law is invalid in a certain way and must be changed - a job then left to the politicians). No law has been disobeyed at all here - rather two perfectly valid laws have been created that are in disagreement, and the court is ordering that the disagreement be resolved in favour of one.

dlwdlw 9y ago

Reminds me of bad actors in large companies. You'd think it is beneficial to remove them as fast as possible, but in any sort of bubbled environment, extrication is not easy. Especially when the bad decisions are a result of the existing system and the said actor in tandem. (That is, that person may be "good" in another system)