Outgoing Tory leader Michael Howard has told judges to obey parliamentary diktat without question, according to the BBC:
Parliament must be supreme. Aggressive judicial activism will not only undermine the public’s confidence in the impartiality of our judiciary
I do not pretend to be an expert in legal procedure, but I always thought that judges were supposed to make their decisions based on the law. If forthcoming anti-terror measures do not comply with other laws (such as the Human Rights Act) then they are just as illegal as the acts they seek to prevent.
If Parliament wants to avoid ‘activism’ from judges then it should pass laws which do not violate UK and European statutes, not try to browbeat judges with newspaper columns.