GeekLawyer’s Blog

Written constitutions are a fine thing for the most part. While not much of a constitutional theorist Geeklawyer has often thought that a constitution defined rigidly enough to prevent subsequent power grabs to be good. Some favour a document that everyone can read and understand, a flexible ‘back of the envelope’ thing knocked up in 5 minutes in the pub; e.g. the American Constitution.

Fine, but as anyone who has ever had to argue a statute in court knows, broad flexible documents leave much to interpretation. That’s fine when honest men draft and virtuous men decide, but that contingent condition is, in this cynic’s view, rarely  met.

Perhaps in simpler times when the problems were less involved a simple document was all that was needed and parliaments could be relied on for decency. Perhaps.

An illustration of the difficulty in the latter, in a Parliament heavily whipped by the executive, is the story in the Times whereby a constitutional reform bill, sold to the electorate as being one to improve accountability transparency and honesty, has been subverted to do the reverse. The Attorney General, both politican and legal advisor - nice separation of powers, was widely criticised for not disclosing his advice on the illegal Iraq war and was then leant on by Phoney Tony to reinterpret the advice in  more convenient light. Being a grasping ambitious lickspittle he obliged.

The reforms were posited to remove the structural deficiencies allowing that to happen, but as ex-AG Lord ‘fatty’ Falconer said the bill has descended into meaningless waffle. Far from removing the power of abuse it would increase it. For example the AG can now step in with new explicitly powers to spike politically inconvenient prosecutions like the investigation into the corrupt payments BAE gave to the Saudis.

So, like Geeklawyer said, to get a good constitution you need honest men: Tony Bliar? ineffectual Gordon ‘closet queen’ Brown, Preening Cameron? Righty ho.