Baroness Hale revealed her ‘true colours’ by voting against the Rwanda Bill, according to former leader of the Commons Jacob-Rees-Mogg, who yesterday called for the ‘politicised’ Supreme Court to be emasculated.
Rees-Mogg’s comments coincided with the launch of the right-wing splinter group Popular Conservatism, fronted by former Prime Minister Liz Truss. In an article for the website Conservativehome, the MP for North East Somerset demanded that the court’s powers be circumscribed so it is no longer the ‘final arbiter of the law’.
‘The sovereignty of Parliament, as the representative of the people, has been eroded and power handed to an increasingly assertive bureaucracy, one that may no longer be blamed on Brussels,’ he said. ‘It is particularly interesting to note in the context of the courts that Baroness Hale, former president of the Supreme Court, has revealed her true colours by voting with the Liberal Democrats against the second reading of the Rwanda Bill.
‘It is rare and of dubious political legitimacy for the Lords to reject a bill outright at so early a stage but for a senior, albeit retired, judge to do so indicates her lack of sympathy for the norms of the constitution and the apparent politicisation that she brought to the Supreme Court.’
He added: ‘The elected representative retains responsibility, but has lost power – and this is the fundamental challenge that underlines PopCon. The power of the bureaucracy currently limits the change that is possible.
‘The Blairite constitutional settlement that set the Supreme Court effectively above the High Court of Parliament needs to be reversed, since the final arbiter of law must be the King in Parliament, not the Supreme Court. It judges how the law applies, Parliament decides what it says. The executive needs to take back control of decision making.’
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