Original Heathrow High Court Judgement
February 29, 2020
By Paul Homewood
h/t MrGrimNasty
Just an interesting update on the Heathrow case.
This is the original High Court judgement, which has been overturned by the Appeal Court:
It is quite clear that the Paris Agreement does not form part of UK law.
We must await the Appeal Court’s full judgment, but it is hard to see how it can be actually based on the actual law as it stands. Or how the High Court misinterpreted the law, which is surely the only grounds for overturning the original judgement.
26 Comments
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Let’s hope that is the case
Time to drop though so other baseless judgements can’t be made
>
Unfortunately Paul, the Law is only whatever a Court interprets it as being. Written words are maleable in the hands of our legal friends, and ‘the law’ consequently changes from day to day depending on the whims of a Court. As a consequence Courts are increasingly areas of political skirmishes. Its obviously ‘in extremis’ in the US, but just about every country’s legal system is open to manipulation by activists of one hue or another.
The Supreme Court may take a different view to the Appeal Court.j
Don’t count on it.
This is the judgment:
Click to access Heathrow-judgment-on-planning-issues-27-February-2020.pdf
Section 12(4) says one of the issues is ‘whether the Secretary of State breached the SEA Directive by failing to consider the Paris Agreement.’
Then there are additions to that in Section 13. The words ‘Paris Agreement’ appear 91 times in the whole document.
Para. 276 refers to a ‘basic defect’:
We are unable to accept the suggestion that the terms of section 31(2A) are satisfied in this case. We find it impossible to conclude that it is “highly likely” that the ANPS would not
have been “substantially different” if the Secretary of State had gone about his task in
accordance with law. In particular, in our view, it was a basic defect in the decision-making
process that the Secretary of State expressly decided not to take into account the Paris
Agreement at all. That was a fundamentally wrong turn in the whole process.
See also the Conclusion, paras. 281-285.
In their view!
Of course, but that’s what we’re stuck with now
Paras 236-238 of the judgment are interesting. In 236 they decide that ‘the
Secretary of State was advised that he was not permitted as a matter of law to take into account the Paris Agreement’.
238. Again we would emphasize that it does not follow from this that the Secretary of State was obliged to act in accordance with the Paris Agreement or to reach any particular outcome. The only legal obligation, in our view, was to take the Paris Agreement into account when arriving at his decision.
– – –
So it was the duff advice that in the end has led to the verdict.
Could it really come to this that, judges in lower courts, having dismissed cases (GreenPeace climbing power station chimneys; XR blocking the roads in London) before them because they sympathise with their aims, have now managed to push their ideology up to the more senior benches? If this is the case then it will not only be Rutman being made to give up his office. No bad thing, IMO.
Is Greedpeace a registered charity? if so are they not allowed to retain charity status if they engage in political action.
they lost it in new zealand in 2018, and in Canada a few years ago and they have had problems in USA…grounds are …they do not do any actual charity work and commit illegal acts. but maybe they got it back……
It feels like a negation of Brexit. Is Boris the right person to lead a revolution?
Definitely no. He’s probably ok for Brexit but nothing else.
“He’s probably OK for Brexit but nothing else“
Not entirely:
“Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds engaged and expecting baby”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51691434
And there was me (and, I think, quite a few others) hoping the pair would soon fall out. This announcement, presumably, means absolutely NO chance of him changing his mind over the absurd climate laws we are saddled with…
I suspect this needs a quick debunk:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8059057/Storm-Jorge-sweeps-Britain-four-inches-downpours-snow-70mph-winds.html
Perhaps the debunk, assuming they do irony, is: weather or not.
The judge could have used the Climate Change act and then Net Zero.
The stupid Governments all over the world are playing into the hands of the Climate activists and the UN Agendas.
And the Chinese are laughing at us.
Laughing all the way to the bank , selling us their wind and solar power contraptions .
I’ve always said as far as climate, and many other things, Brexit merely cut out the middleman between us and the UN. I’ve now come to the conclusion that it will result in more extreme nonsense and regulation.
The judgement is nonsense. The court declared the government hadn’t taken into account their obligations under the CC Act. Yet surely to counter that all government has to say is, ‘actually your Honour, yes we did’.
There; that’s government ‘taking our obligations into account’!
‘Paris’ isn’t legal in ANY way so relying on that route alone is dead before it starts. It’s UK law which is the sticking point, in particular whether the UK government has acted within its own obligations.
Ben Piles article is superb and rightly credits Peter (now Lord) Lilley with calling out the inevitable activist-led judicial review into our own ‘legally binding’ obligations fully 12 years ahead of it happening.
We’re governed by spivs, chancers and idiots.
We’re governed by carpetbaggers. The Debens of our age, pathetically seeking to emulate Gore and acquire his millions. I wonder what his burger-(forced) eating daughter makes of him now,
UK law is still the same as EU law, unless or until Parliament replaces any part of it with new legislation.
The ‘offending’ item is the SEA Directive according to the judges.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_SEA_Directive_2001/42/EC
We’re governed by spivs, chancers and idiots.
We always have been!
No judge needs a reason to grab more power for the judges
I would still like to know how Boris intends to meet the legal requirements of his net zero carbon emissions by 2050 without closing all UK airprts?