Letters: the courts are not trying to subvert parliament

Judge not

Sir: The claim by Ross Clark (‘Keir’s law’, 22 June) that the left can achieve what it wants by relying, in part, on ‘judicial activism’ is uninformed and misleading. I can assure Mr Clark and those who might share his sentiments that the courts are, in general, at pains to respect the separation of powers and the will of parliament.

A cursory consideration of recent decisions from the Supreme Court would have revealed this. For example, in a judgment handed down in April, Lord Sales (delivering the unanimous judgment of that court) reaffirmed the already well-established principle that ‘in the field of social welfare policy, courts should normally be slow to substitute their view for that of the decision maker who has the democratic authority to make the relevant judgment, whether parliament or a secretary of state’. The secretary of state’s appeal was allowed and the human rights claim in question was dismissed. Mr Clark’s article fails to reflect this reality, not to mention the incredibly difficult balancing exercise that our judges are daily engaged in, seeking to faithfully interpret and apply the law, without fear or favour.

Steven J McQuitty KC
Bar Library, Belfast

Prosecuting decisions

Sir: Re. Ross Clark’s article, it is of course the job of the Director of Public Prosecutions to decide whether to prosecute cases or not. Keir Starmer’s decision not to prosecute the parents of the tetraplegic 23-year-old Daniel James, who had helped their son travel to Dignitas where he ended his life, did not decriminalise assisted suicide; five new assisted suicide cases have been referred to the CPS in the past year. The decision in 2013 not to prosecute two doctors for offering sex-selection abortion likewise did not decriminalise abortion on those grounds – in fact in November 2014 MPs voted 181 to one in favour of the Abortion (Sex-Selection) Bill to ban abortions on grounds of gender, after it was agreed the law needed clarifying.