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Lord Sumption: “I’m Not Optimistic About the Future of Our Democracy”

by Richard Eldred
9 February 2025 7:00 PM

In the Times, former Supreme Court justice Jonathan Sumption warns Fraser Nelson that democracy is at risk as power shifts from parliament to the courts, fuelled by lockdowns, a safety-first mindset and the enshrining of principles like DEI in law. Here’s an excerpt:

Some years ago, a man dived into a shallow lake in a Cheshire beauty spot and broke his neck. He sued the council for compensation, saying that the “no swimming” signs were not enough because people were ignoring them. A court agreed. The case made an impression on Jonathan Sumption, not as proof of lawyers going mad (the case was later rejected on appeal), but as proof of a wider trend: the expansion of a safety-first mindset and, with it, the steady erosion of liberty. …

His third collection of essays and lectures, The Challenges of Democracy: And the Rule of Law, develops the theme of his 2019 Reith Lectures: that power is shifting from parliament to the courts in a way that threatens democracy. He says his theory found terrible vindication when Covid arrived and people demanded draconian restrictions that had no basis in science. He sees this not as a freak event but as a leap in a long-term slide towards a kind of soft popular autocracy. “We are entering a Hobbesian world,” he writes in one of the essays, “the enormity of which has not yet dawned on our people.” …

He sees lockdown not as an anomaly but as the moment when Britain “turned the corner” on liberal democracy, “a change in our relationship with the state” that was, essentially, consensual. “It was what people wanted. Government manipulation partly explains that, but I certainly don’t think it’s the whole of it. More important was a more general propensity of the population to look to the state for things that the state is actually not capable of doing.” In this case, stopping a virus in its tracks. …

Rarely among lawyers, Sumption is critical of what he calls “the legal view” of society: that certain principles (equality, diversity) ought to be enshrined in statute and be put outside the reach of politics. “There are lots of people who essentially want their own social policies to have the force of law, preferably a fundamental law which governments could not encroach upon.” The Equality Act and the Human Rights Act both made it easier to sue using judicial review. “This is actually a serious problem and it can only really be dealt with by raising the threshold at which you can quash or can criticise a government policy,” he says. …

Is this what he means by the death of democracy: more laws, red tape and courts governing ever more of our lives? “No, I don’t think the courts are the main enemy. I think that the main enemy is the public at large.” Too many people want the “smack of firm government”, he says. “It’s an image that perfectly summarises what many people want. A smack. It implies a nanny, with a great rod.” …

One improvement, he says, would be withdrawing from the European Convention of Human Rights. “My view is that we should enact the convention in its proper language, and transfer the power of interpretation to our own courts from the Strasbourg court.”

Worth reading in full.

Tags: AuthoritarianismDEIDemocracyECHRLockdownLord Jonathan Sumption

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18 Comments
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Art Simtotic
Art Simtotic
3 months ago

“The right to a fair trial presupposes the existence of impartial judges.”

For once, I find myself agreeing with the unconscious bias industry. No such thing as impartiality. The arbiter is part of the outcome.

Last edited 3 months ago by Art Simtotic
4
0
JXB
JXB
3 months ago

Trying to politicise it?

That happened when the Rule of Law was abandoned with Acts of Parliament – such as race, sex discrimination – giving some groups of society advantages backed by the State and legal system that others don’t have, and which can be used by the State or others for political, ideological reasons, gain, or just malice and spite.

Under the Rule of Law, it must be clear when a particular action by a citizen breaches the law, so they know they are acting illegally and in any case their action can be shown in a Court to be in breach.

The so-called hate crime act makes it an offence if just one person is offended by an action. So it is not the action that causes the breach, it is the reaction. This leaves it entirely unclear to a citizen whether their action is illegal. If nobody claims offence it isn’t, if someone does it is – and there is no time limit. The Gestapo can turn up weeks, months, years later because somebody read or heard about what was said and is “offended”.

The Rule of Law, like our other Common Law Rights no longer exists.

14
0
PeterM
PeterM
3 months ago
Reply to  JXB

Yes, I think David Starkey makes this point too that “rights” laws give minorities a higher level of “justice” than everyone else: that is, if I understand him, that the minority rules the majority. For instance, a rapist who can’t be deported and the majority are expected to subsume him.

1
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
3 months ago

Off-T.

No articles dealing with this so it has landed here.

An absolutely fascinating article which outlines were this country is headed if we don’t pull our fingers out in the next few years. Target date is 2030 as i keep stating.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/uk-leading-global-test-bed-ai-enforcement/5877274

“Klaus Schwab convinced him – as well as his compatriot the King of England – that this is the future. “If you want to keep your job for the next four years you had better set about it right away” warn his minders.

An upright turbocharged goose step march into state controlled surveillance; big data; central control and a subservient brain damaged social constituency – is what is actually being announced by the British prime minister.

The Guardian newspaper boldly announces

“Keir Starmer will launch a sweeping action plan to increase twenty fold the amount of AI computing power under public control by 2030.”

Hello, there’s that infamous 2030 date looming up again. Everything is supposed to be in place to have achieved full spectrum dominance over freedom loving members of the human race by that date”

Last edited 3 months ago by huxleypiggles
7
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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
3 months ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

The area where AI seems to have the most potential is in snooping and censoring and generally making our lives more difficult – it doesn’t matter too much if it makes mistakes one way or another, it’s a case of “never mind the quality, feel the width”.

4
0
Arum
Arum
3 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

Luckily (!) we won’t have enough electricity to keep the lights on in 2030, let alone run AI systems

6
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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
3 months ago
Reply to  Arum

Lol

The internet is powered by unicorn farts

2
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
3 months ago
Reply to  Arum

Correct.

0
0
Jack the dog
Jack the dog
3 months ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Interesting to see that nuclear reactors are OK for powering AI installations but not steel plants or chemical works… which actually create real wealth and proper jobs.

4
0
RW
RW
3 months ago

It would be extremely helpful if the author had at least summarized what he’s criticizing. Or maybe at least provided a link. As It stands, I have no idea what he’s writing about save that he’s opposed to something.

The nice thing about human rights is that their definition is often vague enough that it can be interpreted to mean anything. The COVID era right to life included force masking people, enforcing certain distances between them and regulating who might legally meet whom under what circumstances, all claimed to be motivated by the state protecting people’s right to life by ensuring that they wouldn’t come into harmful contact with other people.

Likewise, a right to life, that is, to enjoyment of human rights, had the ECHR find that the Swiss state was not doing enough to combat climate change to protect elderly climate activists from the dreadful consequences of heat waves in summer in Switzerland, a country not exactly known for its hot climate because it’s location in the Alps.

Hence, if Hermer wants to intertwine rule of law and human rights, he most likely simply wants to make arbitrary unaccountable political decisions about stuff, eg, end all deportations of foreign criminals because of their right to whatever suggests itself and – at the same time – send any British people who critcize this to jail for incitement to whatever comes to mind first.

Last edited 3 months ago by RW
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Jeff Chambers
Jeff Chambers
3 months ago

To import ‘human rights’ into the notion of the rule of law is misconceived

The important thing for our rulers about “rights” is that they are in the gift of the government. This is in contrast to freedom, which belongs to each individual. This is the reason for the interesting modern fact that as “rights” proliferate, freedom diminishes, and government power increases.

Last edited 3 months ago by Jeff Chambers
5
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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
3 months ago

I like what the incomparable US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has to say about “human rights” and the law: that rights should be understood as conferring freedom from government interference rather than entitlement to government benefits.

5
0
EppingBlogger
EppingBlogger
3 months ago

What they want is courts run by and for the elites. That way lies perpetual socialism snd no freedom.

2
0
NeilofWatford
NeilofWatford
3 months ago

Surely, the law was politicised by Blair in 1997?
ECHR, Supreme Court? Lefty judges?

6
0
PeterM
PeterM
3 months ago

Wasn’t Lord Hermer the guy who pressed for the prosecution of Tommy Robinson for a civil offence which is unusual for the AG to
do? Presumably Robinson had no human rights to appeal to such as being kept in perpetual solitary confinement!

0
0
Sandy Pylos
Sandy Pylos
3 months ago

Going to the source of Human Rights, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, I can find no actual rights at all, only well meaning aspirations. No wonder they have become so malleable for politicians and so lucrative for lawyers.

1
0
coviture2020
coviture2020
3 months ago

The last paragraph and Southport so much for lawyers

0
0

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