By Ben Kerrigan
Prime minister Boris Johnson says the Supreme Court judgement was an intrusion on a political area , as he continued to question the validity of the ruling by the Supreme Court
Johnson expressed his dissatisfaction with the ruling on both the Telegraph and the BBC’s Andrew Marr’s Show yesterday that he found the judgment was ‘certainly novel’ and raised ‘very interesting constitutional questions, and those need to be thought through over quite a long time.’ Describing the judgement as novel, the prime minister said:
‘I think that the judgment by the 11 justices was certainly novel and peculiar in the sense that they went against the master of the rolls, the lord chief justice, in extending the remit of the court into what I think was obviously a political question. The consequences of that decision are going to be working their way through for quite some time. You are now already starting
In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, Johnson insisted that he respected the court’s judgment “very humbly and very sincerely.” But he suggested there would be “consequences” following the judges decision to intervene in such a highly political question.
“In so doing it seems to me that the justices intruded onto an acutely sensitive political question, at a time of great national controversy .. I don’t think that the consequences of that judgment have yet been fully evaluated,” he said.
“It will take a while to be worked through. But I think, if judges are to pronounce on political questions in this way, then there is at least an argument that there should be some form of accountability.”
“The lessons of America are relevant,” he added, apparently referring to the U.S. system of political appointment of judges and other measures