4 ms·

The British fascination with America is indeed quite fascinating. I think Britain recently even decided to get a Supreme Court. You have British politicians no

The British fascination with America is indeed quite fascinating. I think Britain recently even decided to get a Supreme Court. You have British politicians now talking about the independence of the judiciary* and other philosophical ideas that are present frequently in American discourse but I guess is new for Britain now that they recently got an independent Supreme Court. *This, by the way, happened in a Prime Minister's Questions thing a few years ago. Jeremy Corbyn asked PM Theresa May if she would respect the "independence of the judiciary" regarding some UK Supreme Court ruling and PM May said she would.

eynsham 3y ago
Blackstone wrote approvingly of constitutional arrangements under which ‘each branch [is] armed with a negative power, sufficient to repel any innovation which it shall think inexpedient or dangerous’ (Commentaries, Introduction, § 2). Of course, the branches were different. The Supreme Court is superficially, by nomenclature, an Americanism. But I am yet to see any convincing argument that its jurisprudence has meaningfully been Americanised. It was in the Appellate Committee, not the Supreme Court, that in R (Jackson) v Attorney General Lord Steyn, Lady Hale and Lord Hope in obiter expressed some doubt as to the Diceyan notion of parliamentary sovereignty. The independence of the Appellate Committee was not new. It was, perhaps, rather casually treated (‘Prologue’, Stevens, The independence of the judiciary) and under-theorised. But no non-law Lord has tried to vote since the 1880s. Reference to judicial independence is hardly a novelty. Have British jurisprudence and constitutional discourse been Americanised in substance? Perhaps, but you make no, and hardly even advert to, such an argument.
philipwhiuk 3y ago
It's not really that surprising. America is the superpower gepolitically aligned to the UK and the importance more so in the face of waning British influence. To put it blunt: 'what happens over there matters over here'. As for the SCOTUK, they have been effectively independent as Law Lords for decades, appointed for life, unremovable, etc etc. What they got was a title change and a new building and removed from voting on legislation. The independence of the judiciary stuff has always been the case, it's just rarely been newsworthy until recent cases - we've been doing some fairly fundamental legal restructuring. They've never been influenceable by the government post appointment.

eynsham 3y ago

Blackstone wrote approvingly of constitutional arrangements under which ‘each branch [is] armed with a negative power, sufficient to repel any innovation which it shall think inexpedient or dangerous’ (Commentaries, Introduction, § 2). Of course, the branches were different. The Supreme Court is superficially, by nomenclature, an Americanism. But I am yet to see any convincing argument that its jurisprudence has meaningfully been Americanised. It was in the Appellate Committee, not the Supreme Court, that in R (Jackson) v Attorney General Lord Steyn, Lady Hale and Lord Hope in obiter expressed some doubt as to the Diceyan notion of parliamentary sovereignty. The independence of the Appellate Committee was not new. It was, perhaps, rather casually treated (‘Prologue’, Stevens, The independence of the judiciary) and under-theorised. But no non-law Lord has tried to vote since the 1880s. Reference to judicial independence is hardly a novelty. Have British jurisprudence and constitutional discourse been Americanised in substance? Perhaps, but you make no, and hardly even advert to, such an argument.

philipwhiuk 3y ago

It's not really that surprising. America is the superpower gepolitically aligned to the UK and the importance more so in the face of waning British influence. To put it blunt: 'what happens over there matters over here'. As for the SCOTUK, they have been effectively independent as Law Lords for decades, appointed for life, unremovable, etc etc. What they got was a title change and a new building and removed from voting on legislation. The independence of the judiciary stuff has always been the case, it's just rarely been newsworthy until recent cases - we've been doing some fairly fundamental legal restructuring. They've never been influenceable by the government post appointment.