Fluent Radical

That headline in full:Man challenges fine with 1689 law. Doesn’t it seem to imply that the Bill of Rights is just some quaint old law that has hung around on the statute books, as opposed to the founding document of our Parliament?

The situation is crazy. Let’s review the steps:

1. Lord Justice Laws rules that Britain has constitutional laws that are protected, thus securing the conviction of the Metric Martyrs.
2. People friendly to the metric martyrs realise that this ruling implies that the issuance of parking fines without trial is illegal and the laws that allow it unconstitutional.
3. Someone at The Parliament and Constitution Centre thinks “Whoops” and sends out a memo saying that Lord Justice Laws was wrong, and parking fines are legal after all.

The memo says that “the opinion of Justice Laws is not universally accepted among judges or legislators.” Maybe I’m missing something, but the opinion of Justice Laws is the reason why these guys were convicted of a crime. Isn’t this a precedent? Doesn’t it bind other judges and legislators? I know the common law is supposed to be flexible, but surely that doesn’t extend to having two contradictory ideas of law?

It seems as though the constitution’s real purpose is simply to defeat political enemies of the Government, and the law is whatever makes that come true.

From Snafu we learn that:

A teenager has successfully challenged a court bid forcing her to wear an electronic ankle tag as she said it would not look right with a skirt.

Well absolutely. And what’s more, aren’t those nasty clothes people have to wear in jail just sooooo unfashionable? It’s probably a breach of human rights, or something.