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Answer the Question

Having found a few spare minutes outside Standing Committee A etc I managed to issue the papers for R v The Prime Minister ex parte Hemming yesterday.

So far the Cabinet Secretary, Prime Minister and Prime Minister's solicitors (Treasury Solicitors) have been unable to give a substantive response to my complaint that Ministers of the Crown don't answer questions. There are now very tight deadlines within which they are forced to provide a substantive response.

Judicial Review has two main stages. The first stage is to get "permission" for JR. This involves the papers being issued, served a response (ackknowledgement of service) from the other side and a desk consideration by the Judge. That can then be taken to a permission hearing if needed.

In this case the Speaker's Counsel is an "interested party" because of the issue relating to the 1688 Bill of Rights. However, the Speaker has the view that the content of questions is not a matter for him.

Comments

John Hemming said…
Bad government and tyrannical government costs billions if not more.
4:36 pm
John Hemming said…
The costs are unclear. If the government give in straight away then it won't cost them anything.

Judicial Reviews are normally estimated at about 25K although my experience is that the figure is considerably less.
7:28 pm
John Hemming said…
The JR is about questions that have been asked and not answered.

They have been asked verbally and in writing a number of times and still not answered.
7:50 am
John Hemming said…
http://johnhemming.blogspot.com/2006/05/letter-to-tony-blair.html

The point is that they don't answer.

You can see Blair's response to my question of wednesday as a good example of this.
3:03 pm
John Hemming said…
I get about 1 shot at PMQ every year. Even then the question is not answered.

I can, however, ask a substantial number of written questions. They, however, are not answered properly.

Hence the reason for the JR.

That is exactly the answer to your question.
7:18 pm
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