Comments | liquorsnob: I hate Bureaucrats

liquorsnob

I hate Bureaucrats

Aug 05, 2003 13:43

So I'm doing some casework, involving CAFCASS (the family courts service). One of their Sheffield managers has taken the position that no information can be shared with the MP as that would infringe the Data Protection Act and the Human Rights Act with relation to the constituent's rights ( Read more... )

Comments 9

redistributer August 6 2003, 09:26:00 UTC

Isobel Clifford did that to me once. However, I went for the simpler option of having the constituent tell her that it was ok to share the information.

liquorsnob August 7 2003, 05:18:00 UTC

They aren't disputing the fact that the constituent has made the request for the MP to see the documents/help with the case. They seem to think that this isn't enough. Their latest letter said that under the Administration of Justice Act 1960 they weren't empowered to release any documents, or discuss the case at all, as they'd been acting as an agent of the court ( ... )

redistributer August 7 2003, 09:21:12 UTC

On a side issue, the 1707 Act of Union isn't as sacrosanct as a lot of the anti-independence brigade, yourself included, would like to think. In the first fifty years of the Act, at least five of the around two dozen articles were overruled by new laws - don't you love that wonderful (English) tradition of parliamentary sovereignty? The most recent violation that I can think of was the 1975 Local Government Act, which legally terminated the existence of county-sized administrative units that were explicitly protected in 1707. Although every budget that puts a tariff on whisky continues to violate it.

A fellow nationalist once told me that whatever body it is that recognises international treaties doesn't recognise the 1707 Treaty for the simple reason that it's been violated so much. Now that would be an interesting negotiating point for independence, eh?

liquorsnob August 7 2003, 16:36:16 UTC

Surely by definition the 1707 Act accepts the validity of parliamentary sovereignty? If it doesn't, then the whole Act is null and void (i.e. the then Scottish Parliament vacated its rights and responsibilities in favour of the British Parliament. As the legal inheritor of these, it had the right to do what ever it wanted with them.)

The 1975 Local Government (Scotland (surely?)) Act thus was as valid as, but more recent than, the 1707 Act as a constitutional "amendment"?

Or have I got this totally wrong and one of the articles of the 1707 Act was that the rights enshrined therein could not be abrogated?

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