Today in “how can we make things worse” the Secretary of State for Justice introduces a new distinction between breaches of international law that CAN be fudged and those that CANNOT be fudged. Why does that make things worse? /1
It entrenches the prevailing myth that lawyers are willing to and somehow can “fudge” almost everything. That justice is an infinitely malleable concept. For our partners?... /2
For our partners the message is serious. The provisions in this treaty are exceptional in their clarity. Take sect. 43. It gives the secretary of state the power to make regulations “disapplying ... Article 10” of the NI Protocol of the WA. Or sect. 45 /3
Sect. 45 explicitly states that the problematic provisions of 42 and 43 shall have effect “notwithstanding any relevant international or domestic law with which they may be incompatible or inconsistent.” /4
If these are the types of provisions that “can be fudged” it is rather difficult to see which ones cannot.
In short: please all stop making things worse with half-thought out ideas. Rather say nothing. Just say “we have all heard enough on the issue.”
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