UK Parliament / Open data

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

My Lords, the courts are always astute. They sort of intuitively know where they have to stop and where Parliament has to take over. That is a process that has been honed and refined for the past 100 years at least, but it does not prevent the courts moulding, refining and developing the common law. There comes a point where you cannot go further, but quite often in a court you can, especially when you have existing jurisprudence. It is quite early on in the development of a new technology. In the Warner case, we were talking about hyperlinks, graphic interfaces and all sorts of high-technology things with which I am sure your Lordships are extremely familiar, but it is a new area of law, and the courts, generally speaking, work with that until they find that they have gone as far as they can as a court and then Parliament takes over. With respect, I would not completely accept the observation of my noble friend Lord Hailsham that this is usurping Parliament.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
828 c604 
Session
2022-23
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
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