Submissions in response to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee’s ‘Call for Evidence’ on the Constitution, Democracy and Rights Commission
/Introduction
The Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, founded in 1930, provides a well-respected and knowledgeable forum for the discussion and analysis of law and the legal system, both nationally and internationally, from a socialist perspective. We are independent of any political party and our membership comprises lawyers, academics, students and legal workers as well as trade union and labour movement affiliates. Our President is Michael Mansfield QC. Our Vice-Presidents are Geoffrey Bindman QC, Louise Christian, Liz Davies, Tess Gill, Tony Gifford QC, John Hendy QC, Helena Kennedy QC, Imran Khan QC, Catrin Lewis, Gareth Pearce, Estella Schmidt, Jeremy Smith, Frances Webber, Richard Harvey and David Watkinson. Our members and vice presidents include noteworthy experts on areas including the rule of law, access to justice, administrative law, human rights, extradition law, disability rights, amongst other areas. The contributions in this submission therefore draw upon significant professional expertise and offer a public-interested perspective into the proposed Commission.
A commission to examine “the broader aspects of our constitution” and “come up with proposals to restore trust in our institutions and in how our democracy operates” is to be welcomed in principle. Our submissions in response to the questions posed by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (“the Committee”) with regards to the proposed Constitution, Democracy and Rights Commission (“the Commission”) should be read in combination with our submission to the Independent Review of Judicial Review and are informed by the following observations:
Successive governments have used neoliberal narratives of cost, streamlining and efficiency to effectively curtail and erode rights within the judicial system, particularly within the past decade. Meanwhile, the same governments have failed to reverse the trend of rising inequality beginning at the end of the 1970s. It is such curtailments and reductions, resulting in an increase in the burden on those who are both lacking in power and in most need of judicial remedy, combined with economic inequality, that undermine trust in our institutions and in how our democracy operates.
The world is experiencing a climate emergency, exacerbated by global capitalism which encourages overuse of natural resources and does not account for value beyond profit. The scale of the climate emergency we are currently experiencing means that an examination of “the broader aspects of our constitution” must necessarily include a reexamination of the natural environment’s place within the Constitution.
The United Kingdom must recognise its significant contribution to and responsibility for the global climate and biodiversity crises through its colonial exportation of private property ownership and capitalism. This is no exaggeration when considered in the light of the fact that by 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23% of the world population at the time, and by 1920, covered 35,500,000 km2 (13,700,000 sq mi), 24% of the Earth's total land mass. Given Britain’s unique history of global imperialism, any approach to a future constitution must take into account rights and duties with regards to reparations to former colonies. British imperialist ‘exceptionalism’ grounded in imperialist readings of the Constitution is not a thing of the past, as evidenced by recent disregard for international law in relation to the Good Friday Agreement, the disgraceful treatment of the Chagos Islanders and the willingness to sweep aside the Sewel Convention in passing the EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Act.
Today, the fluidity of international capital and its ability to transcend nation state regulation (e.g. Amazon and Apple’s scrutiny from the EU over its tax affairs) calls for increased organisation of workers and the working class. We stand with our comrades in the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and the European Lawyers for Democracy and World Human Rights in this respect, as we seek to ensure that the process of decolonisation is completed, including within the UK’s offshore tax havens and other outstanding colonial territories. In doing so, we respect the potential of international law as it currently operates but have a strong critique of its underlying premises, such as the disproportionate power that manifests in the vetoes of the permanent members of the UN Security Council. We note in this respect the injustice of the Chagos Islands and the role of the UK and the US therein: we recognise the terrible injustice of cleansing them of their native peoples for the sake of a US airbase and support calls to properly compensate the victims.
The Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers is conscious of its history and the struggles of comrades in the past. It is in this sense, that we are acutely aware that the constitutional tectonic plates are shifting in the UK. The devolution ‘settlement’ of 1998 is under scrutiny with developments relating to Brexit. The British Government has chosen to disregard international law in its implementation of Brexit and undermine the constitutional basis of the Belfast Agreement, which is an international obligation that it is willing to breach in a “‘specific and limited” way.
Given the above observations, it is not only desirable, but urgently necessary that a different system be adopted. The hope of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers is that such a system would be a socialist republic, supported in law by a constitutional convention and citizens assemblies, with further devolution and an amended electoral system, although we recognise that it is the role of the Commission to present such solutions, and not our role in presenting these submissions.
Continue reading for our more detailed proposals for the Commission’s consideration.
