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[Niche legal thread:]
With the greatest respect to lawyers citing it, I don't think the Court of Appeal's judgment in Gulf Centre says that ministers' duty under the Ministerial Code to comply with the law includes a duty to comply with international law. https://bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2018/1855.html
With the greatest respect to lawyers citing it, I don't think the Court of Appeal's judgment in Gulf Centre says that ministers' duty under the Ministerial Code to comply with the law includes a duty to comply with international law. https://bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2018/1855.html
The CA held that the 2010 code, which explicitly mentioned international law, imposed no duty to comply with the law additional to that which ministers already owed. It was "referential", i.e. "referenced" duties ministers already owed.
Though the explicit mention of intl law was dropped in 2015, the key duty under which it was subsumed - the general duty to comply with the law - was kept. The court held, therefore, that "the Deletion involved no change in substance".
It made no finding, in my view, about *what* the substance of the obligation was, ie how far the general duty includes a duty to comply with intl law. It only said that *insofar* as the general duty to comply w law includes intl obligations, the Code references those obligations.
That leaves open the question: *does* the general duty to comply with the law include a duty to comply with international obligations?
My own view on the answer is unequivocally: yes.
But the Court of Appeal did not, I think, give its view on the answer to that question.
/ends
My own view on the answer is unequivocally: yes.
But the Court of Appeal did not, I think, give its view on the answer to that question.
/ends
