THREAD: @davidallengreen is interesting on the bizarrely fluid legal theologies at play in the #defenestration of the ex-#PrinceAndrew.
"Never underestimate the residual force of royal power in the United Kingdom", he warns at https://davidallengreen.com/2025/11/an-instance-of-the-royal-prerogative/
But I am struck by the sheer malleability of the unwritten British "constitution".
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The British "constitution" is like #HumptyDumpty. It seems to mean whatever those in power find it convenient to mean at any given time, even if all previous understandings are thereby completely set aside, or even trampled and mocked.
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This is of course what happened In the #UKSC's judgment in #FWS. The judges refused to hear any opposing arguments, ignored all the evidence in parliamentary proceedings of the clearly stared intent of ministers. They then proceeded to not just gut the existing statutory framework and overturn it, but to do so on the basis of absurdist concepts such as "biological sex", which they didn't even attempt to define.
In both cases, sleight of hand is masquerading as law.
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Each of those changes could have been made by a short and simple Act of Parliament. For Andrew, the Bill of Attainder process could have been revived after two centuries absence, and that would at least have been honest that it was punishment without trial.
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Smilarly, the #UKSC's stripping of trans rights in #FWS could have been done in a very simple bill amending the Equality Act 2020. That would still have been a cruelly devastating breach of #ECHR rights, but at least it would have been procedurally honest.
#UKania does sometimes do procedural honesty. But it's optional.
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@2legged Mind you, if parliament had an ounce of gumption, it could overrule the Supreme Court by passing a bill saying 'When we said in the Gender Recognition Act that 'Where a full gender recognition certificate is issued to a person, the person’s gender becomes FOR ALL PURPOSES the acquired gender,' that is exactly what we meant, and the justices of the #UKSupremeCourt need a course in remedial English comprehension."
The law isn't in the least ambiguous here. The court was plainly wrong.
@simon_brooke @2legged
The Court of Session recognised that the Gender Recognition Act 2004 was specifically passed in response to Goodwin v UK 2002, & therefore the Equality Act 2010 was written in full knowledge of "for all legal purposes" being in the 2004 Act and applying unless specifically excepted.
The Supreme Court went on the basis that the 2010 Act used similar language to the 1975 Act and therefore must mean the same as it would have in 1975 (prior to the 2002 case & 2004 Act)
@HighlandLawyer @simon_brooke Even that #CourtOfSession reliance on a correct interpretation of #GRA2004 & #EA2010 misinterpreted #SDA1975.
At committee stage of #SDA1975, the minister assured MPs that SDA would treat trans people by their reassigned sex. But a botched employment case against British Sugar in late 1970s ignored that. SDA was then misapplied as meaning sex registered at birth.
The #UKSC judgment in #FWS was wrong on all 3 acts: #GRA2004. #EA2010, #SDA1975. It is a #Stitchup
@2legged @HighlandLawyer it doesn't look much like an impartial or fair-minded interpretation of the law. Is there anything, constitutionally, that members of the public can do to express #NoConfidence in the #UKSupremeCourt?
@HighlandLawyer @2legged ... But it was fairly predictable for anyone with two brain cells to rub together that that would have been the outcome, so the #UKSupremeCourt justices cannot credibly plead ignorance; and it is not, by my understanding, within their constitutional competence to overturn the very clear wording of the #2004 act.
Surely, at the very least, resignations are called for?
@HighlandLawyer @2legged I have two advantages over you, then:
1. I am not a lawyer;
2. I am, however, barking mad.
Throughout history it has been we fools who have had the ability to speak truth unto power.
(Power, of course, doesn't care.)
Claire McNab
Simon Brooke
HighlandLawyer