EVALUATE THE VIEW THAT THE SUPREME COURT IS NOW TOO INFLUENTIAL OVER THE WORK OF PARLIAMENT AND GOVERNMENT
Judges can't strike down laws even if they clearly breach basic human rights.
For example, the govt can ignore incompatibility decisions, which happened in 2015 when David Cameron refused to give prisoners the vote. In contrast, the US Supreme Court can strike down these laws.
Can't maintain basic human rights.
One of the most important roles of the SC is to interpret the 1998 Human Rights Act, and issue a 'declaration of incompatibility' if necessary.
However, there's only an expectation that parl will modify the law, and the SC can't ensure this.
It can stop the govt via judicial review.
For example, in 2017 the Supreme Court ended Tribunal fees and declared the Parl had to vote on Article 50, while in 2019 the SC held that Parl's suspension had been unlawful.
Unelected and therefore unaccountable judges are able to undermine the actions of politicians who are democratically elected.
Judicial review is a type of court proceeding where a judge reviews the lawfulness of a decision or action, and investigates whether ministers have acted ultra vires.
Judges cannot initiate judicial review even if there is a clear breach of the law or human rights, as they have to wait for a case to arrive, with it taking 2 to 3 years for the Belmarsh case to come to court.
Limits on judges' independence from govt.
Furthermore, the Daily Mail published an article titled 'Enemies of the People' in 2016, in relation to a ruling judges had made over Brexit.
There are people in the govt working in the SC, and as judges become more high profile more media pressure is placed on them.
However, this isn't always the case. For example, the position of Lord Chancellor is a role in the executive, and the Attorney General and Solicitor General are both govt posts but also lead prosecutions in the courts.
Being independent means the judiciary shouldn't be influenced by the govt, parties or politicians, and this is written in law (2005 Constitutional Reform Act).
Limits to judges' neutrality
For example, the judiciary is largely made up of white middle aged rich men, with only 5% of judges being Black or ethnic, and 75% of judges coming from Oxbridge.
This can lead to them being biased, as demonstrated in the Radmacher vs Granatino 2010 case, where the male judges were unconsciously biased in favour of the man.
Despite this, there are many cases where this has happened.
There isn't enough diversity for it to remain unbiased, leading to questions over the legitimacy of its rulings.
Being neutral means the judiciary shouldn't allow their personal views to affect their duties, or get involved in politics.
The issue of judges not being neutral balances out the issue of independence within the judiciary, as judges are also able to make their own decisions, so perhaps the amount of power judges have is just right.
Governments can achieve elective dictatorships due to parliamentary sovereignty, and judges can't stop them.
As a result, govt bills virtually always pass under an elective dictatorship.
For example, in 1997 Labour had a majority of 179, and between 1997 and 2005 suffered very few parliamentary defeats, even for measures that were generally controversial.
An elective dictatorship is when parl is dominated by the current govt, and is further compounded by an absence of a codified constitution in the UK.
Judges have no power to go against these elective dictatorships as parl is sovereign.
Courts are giving rulings on what should be political decisions.
Has led to judicial activism, and this issue is compounded by the fact that this political activism is perceived as quite liberal, rather than purely neutral or based on law.
Judgements can be overturned by law, which was shown in 2010 when Gordon Brown passed the Terrorist Asset Freezing Act to overcome a SC judgement.
For example, the Bull v Hall case involved arguments over the rights of the LGBTQ+ community, and arguments over the freedom to practice religion, and judges have recently ruled on Heathrow Airport and Brexit.
Judges have become increasingly involved in political issues, like what the govt can do and who should have what human rights, which stops them from being entirely separate from politics.
The govt has announced more details on plans to 'rebalance power between judges and politicians'. This will make it easier for Parl to overrule judges' decisions. However, in practice this doesn't change much, as they could do that anyway (parliamentary sovereignty). This just formalises it, and is therefore arguably just 'for show'.