Due Process in UK Law

Rather it invokes the concept of the rule of law itself and the universally accepted standards of justice observed by civilised nations which observe the rule of law: see the illuminating judgment of Phillips J.A. in Lassalle v. Attorney-General (1971), 18 W.I.R. 379 from which their Lordships have derived much assistance.

It is the general right accorded to all litigants not to have the outcome of any pending appellate or other legal process pre-empted by executive action. By ratifying a treaty which provides for individual access to an international body, the Government made that process for the time being part of the domestic criminal justice system and thereby temporarily at least extended the scope of the due process clause in the Constitution.

The due process clause must therefore be broadly interpreted. It does not guarantee the particular forms of legal procedure existing when the Constitution came into force; the content of the clause is not immutably fixed at that date. But the right to be allowed to complete a current appellate or other legal process without having it rendered nugatory by executive action before it is completed is part of the fundamental concept of due process.

They establish that it is only in rare cases where there has been a fundamental subversion of the rule of law that resort to constitutional redress is likely to be appropriate. However the exceptional case is formulated it is clear that the constitutional rights to due process and the protection of the law do not guarantee that the judicial process will be free from error.

If the court is to have the power to interfere with the prosecution in the present circumstances it must be because the judiciary accept a responsibility for the maintenance of the rule of law that embraces a willingness to oversee executive action and to refuse to countenance behaviour that threatens either basic human rights or the rule of law. If the court is to have the power to interfere with the prosecution in the present circumstances it must be because the judiciary accept a responsibility for the maintenance of the rule of law that embraces a willingness to oversee executive action and to refuse to countenance behaviour that threatens either basic human rights or the rule of law.

In their Lordships' view when Jamaica acceded to the American Convention and to the International Covenant and allowed individual petitions the petitioner became entitled under the protection of the law provision in section 13 to complete the human rights petition procedure and to obtain the reports of the human rights bodies for the Jamaican Privy Council to consider before it dealt with the application for mercy and to the staying of the execution until those reports had been received and considered.

There can be no doubt that a court which is endowed with a particular jurisdiction has powers which are necessary to enable it to act effectively within such jurisdiction. I would regard them as powers which are inherent in its jurisdiction. A court must enjoy such powers in order to enforce its rules of practice and to suppress any abuses of its process and to defeat any attempted thwarting of its process.