Undermining the rule of law? A comment on the Justice Secretary’s Sunday Telegraph interview

Today’s Sunday Telegraph features an extraordinary interview with the UK Government’s Justice Secretary, Dominic Raab.

The report raises three issues of significant constitutional concern: that the Government may be contemplating further changes to judicial review in the light of recent judgments to which it takes exception; that the Government is considering undermining through domestic law the requirement (set out in Article 46(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights) that the UK abides by judgments of the European Court of Human Rights; and, most extraordinarily, that a ‘mechanism’ should be created to enable court judgments (including judgments of UK courts) to be ‘corrected’ when ministers regard them as ‘incorrect’.

In this Twitter thread, I explain why these proposals are profoundly problematic in constitutional terms:

Another Sunday, another Sunday Telegraph story demonstrating the fragile state of respect for the rule of law on the part of the UK Government. The Justice Secretary's apparent plans raise three key constitutional concerns. (1) pic.twitter.com/KmZTTmTwBM

— Mark Elliott (@ProfMarkElliott) October 17, 2021

I have expanded on these thoughts in a short video: