Cześć ;)
Dzisiaj wyjątkowo zmęczony nadchodzącymi egzaminami i bieżącymi testami próbnymi wpadłem na pomysł wrzucenia następnego przykładowego eseju, tym razem z Polityki ;) Jest on na A, także widocznie (według Mr. Higginsa) jest co czytać xd
Jest to nieco inny rodzaj eseju, więc polecam się wczytać. Tak czy inaczej, każdy przedmiot i każdy rodzaj esejów ma swoje charakterystyki :)
Nie otrzymałem żadnych nowych pytań, więc jak macie jakieś to się nie krępujcie tylko pytajcie ;)
To what extent can, and should judges control the power of government?
(40)
Judges are very important in the
UK, because they control the law and make sure that no one is treated in an
offensive way. Government is also controlled especially by the Supreme Court,
established by the Constitutional Reform Act in 2005 and working since 2009.
Senior judges control government in several ways. They check whether the institutions
do not exceed its powers, they interpret statue law and defend people, who feel
treated in a wrong way by the state’s institutions. However, many claim that
judges have too much authority above government, because they are not elected
and government is sovereign, since is the part of Parliament. Because of that
it is right to say that judges can control government very effectively, but
should not have more authority than they have already.
Judges are very effective in
checking whether government does not exceed its power. The power's exceeds of
government are known as “ultra vires”. The judiciary checks government’s
actions and tries to determine whether government works beyond its legal power.
If it works, then judges can pass laws which restrict the power of government. For
instance, suspected terrorist bank assets case in 2010 ruled that government
had no legal power to freeze bank assets of suspected terrorists. It showed
that government acted “ultra vires” and restricted government’s anti-terrorist
policy. However, government can still act above rulings of the judiciary,
because there is no separation of power in the UK, so government as an integral
part of legislature (Parliament) still remains sovereign and can ruled against
the judiciary. Some can argue that the judiciary can work under the Human
Rights Act 1998, which is a fundamental to the most of decisions of the Supreme
Court. This act brought the UK into the ruling of the European Convention of
Human Rights, which tries to protect the rights of all the citizens from the
EU. There is growth in using the Human Rights Act in the practice by judges,
who can easily use it to control the power of government. However, the
decisions of the judiciary are not binding on government and they can overrule
judges. Nevertheless, it is not likely that government overrules this act,
because of their accountability to people, who can simply not choose them
during the next election. In this way, judges are very effective in checking
“ultra vires” cases of government, because they work for people, who elect
government and to whom government is accountable.
The next way of controlling
government is that judges interpret statue law, law which is passed by
Parliament and initiated mostly by government since government has a majority
in Parliament. Judges can interpret the law not in favour of government and by
this way they can control its power. However, the lack of entrenched constitution
makes it difficult, because government can amend constitution in a very simple
way by passing another law through Parliament, which can reject the voice of
judges. Nevertheless, judges still have the right to interpret this statue and
they can claim that government act beyond its legal power – ultra vires.
Through that, government can be easily checked by the judges.
The last important way by which the
judges can control government is judicial review, which is held when a person
or institution want to challenge the decision of government. Judges can hold
it, when a decision offenses the Human Rights Act, common law, or whether the
decision was not “ultra vires”. For instance, Belmarsh case in 2004, in which
judges ruled that government and any other institution cannot imprison
suspected terrorists without a trial, showed that judges can be very effective
in challenging the policy of government. Judicial review’s decisions are
usually accepted by government. However, government still remains sovereign and
in some instances can simply ignore the ruling of the judges. Nevertheless,
increasing number of judicial review cases shows that judges are very effective
in checking government’s power.
Even if judges are effective in
controlling government’s power it is right to say that they should not exceeds
its authority above government, because of two issues. Firstly judges are
appointed not elected, which means that they are not accountable to people as
government is. Because of that it can be said that they have no legal power to
control government, which was elected by the citizens. Some can argue that
because they are not elected they are not interested in politics, but simply do
their work in order to keep order in the society. By arguing in this way judges
can be allowed to control government. Nevertheless, if people choose some
people to represent them, they are responsible for decisions of government and
judges should only obstruct legislation and decisions which can offence the
civil rights and liberties.
Secondly, as it was mentioned
above, government is a part of Parliament so it remains sovereign and it can
easily overrule decisions of the judiciary. In this case it looks like as
judges waste their time on doing something that is not important, because can
be overruled. The only possibility to change that is introducing an entrench
constitution which can restrict government’s and Parliament’s power and give
judges possibility to check government’s power more effectively. Also,
entrenched constitution would lead to greater separation of power in the UK and
make control of power by the judiciary more effective, as it is seen in the
USA, where the executive is elected separately from legislature and because of
that each branch of power can easily check others. However, until now the UK
does not possess an entrenched constitution and therefore the judiciary should
not have more power as it has now, because of government, which is elected by
the people and accountable to them.
Overall, judges are very effective
in checking government’s power, because they can use their power to rule
against “ultra vires” of government, they interpret statue law and they do not
have to interpret it in favour of government. They can also hold judicial
review in order to ensure that the citizens can challenge the decisions of
government. However, the judiciary should not involve more in the process of
checking government’s power because judges are not elected and cannot rule
against government which is elected by the people, accountable to them and
should rule in order to improve their lives. What is more, government as taken
from Parliament is still sovereign and can rule against the judges.
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