Open to new points of view A Norton Rose Fulbright magazine RE: RE: issue 13 RE: WORK THE AUTISM TAPES THE MOVIE’S ABOUT TO START THE PHOTO ESSAY: LOOKING DOWN LIFE A Norton Rose Fulbright magazine magazine Fulbright A Norton Rose Issue 13 Issue : Richard Calnan RICHARD CALNAN ON JURISPRUDENCE In 2009, the highest court in the United a self-evident truth that the service provided Kingdom ceased to be the House of Lords by the courts is more important than that and became the Supreme Court. Although provided by, say, the National Health Service. its location had changed, the identity of its The Court went back to the Magna Carta judges had not, and the expectation was that to justify the conclusion that we all have a the change of name would have little effect constitutional right of unimpeded access to in practice. Nine years on, this is less clear. the courts. Although charging fees does not Supreme means supreme. prevent proceedings being brought, it does This reflection is prompted by R (on the constitute a serious hindrance to doing so. application of UNISON) v Lord Chancellor Legislation can only impede access to the in 2017. In 2011, the Government decided courts if it is very clearly expressed to do so. that fees should be charged to those using The Act under which the Order was made employment tribunals in order to transfer did not contain words which specifically some of the cost burden from taxpayers authorised the prevention of access to to users. It decided to do this by using the tribunals. The Order was therefore unlawful power contained in the Tribunals, Courts and because there was a real risk that persons Enforcement Act 2007, which enabled the would effectively be prevented from having Lord Chancellor to prescribe access to justice. fees for certain tribunals. This is a difficult In 2013, a draft Order argument to accept. was therefore laid before Parliament had passed Parliament, which was then Who judges legislation authorising debated and approved by the Lord Chancellor to both Houses. the judges? set fees. The fees set The result was a dramatic by the Lord Chancellor fall in the number of claims were then approved brought in employment tribunals, and that by Parliament. But they were nevertheless led UNISON to challenge the validity of the unlawful because the legislation under Order. The claim was rejected by the Divisional which the Order was made did not expressly Court and then by the Court of Appeal; but it authorise the prevention of access to was accepted by the Supreme Court, which tribunals. This sounds very much like judges declared the Order to be unlawful. wanting to have the last say on an issue which What is of particular interest in the judgment is essentially political. is the very broad nature of the arguments used The justification was that the fees have to by the Supreme Court to justify its conclusion. be set at a level that everyone can afford. Courts exist in order to ensure that laws are But what that level should be must surely applied and enforced. In order for the courts be determined by democratically elected to perform that role, people must have Members of Parliament, rather than by a unimpeded access to them. Access to the small group of unelected judges. courts is not of value only to the particular Who judges the judges? individuals involved, but to society as a whole. Next time: Conceptual reasoning and the law That is all no doubt correct, although one cannot help but think there is at least an RC is a partner with Norton Rose Fulbright in the UK, Visiting element of hyperbole in its expression. It is not Professor at UCL and an author with Oxford University Press. 01 RE: Work The historian Jeffrey Anderson KING JADWIGA he Grünes Gewölbe in Dresden is the greatest extant to inherit, whether it be land, titles or the throne. This Texample of a royal Kunstkammer, filled with objects was ‘masculinisation’, whereby the king, using his made of amber, ostrich eggs, coral, silver, gold and ‘plenitude of power’, proclaimed that, in the absence of every other substance imaginable. Among its collection male heirs, women could become ‘male’ and enjoy full is a fourteenth-century chalice of rock crystal and silver rights of inheritance. The procedure was duly applied gilt. On my first visit I almost walked past the chalice to Maria so that she could become king of Hungary. In without pausing, except that it is my habit to look at Poland, things were even more simple, since there was each object dutifully, even if only for a moment. Then no legal requirement that a ‘king’ be male. I saw the enamel coat of arms on its base—the arms This laid bare the semantic tension in the words of Anjou—and stopped for a closer look. The Angevin ‘king’ and ‘queen’. If ‘king’ meant the monarch who dynasties that sprang from the French county of Anjou ruled the kingdom and ‘queen’ meant the woman ruled, at various times, England, Jerusalem, Naples married to the king, then what should a woman who and Sicily, Hungary and Poland, and are the most ruled the kingdom be called? The answer was obvious: fascinating rulers of the medieval period. if a woman were monarch, then she was king. The label stated that the chalice was commissioned Hedwig was crowned under the Polish form of as a gift for Wawel Cathedral some time after 1385 her name, Jadwiga, as king in 1384. Jadwiga swiftly by the Angevin Queen Jadwiga of Poland. Yet this is became one of the most important monarchs in Polish incorrect, because Jadwiga wasn’t queen of Poland: she history, most notably by marrying the last pagan ruler in was its king. Europe, Jagiello of Lithuania, when she was eleven. Her Jadwiga was the younger daughter of Louis the Great consent to the marriage facilitated the mass conversion of Hungary, who had himself become king of Poland of the Lithuanians to Latin Christianity and sealed her after usurping the throne from the descendants—in reputation for sanctity—although some say that she was the female line—of his cousin Casimir the Great. When forced to marry Jagiello and tried to smash her way out Louis died in 1382, his elder daughter Maria claimed of Wawel Castle with an axe in a bid to escape and return both thrones, but the Polish nobility refused to be ruled to her betrothed, the Habsburg Duke William of Austria. by an absentee monarch and insisted that Hedwig (as Jadwiga died in 1399 at the age of twenty-six, a Jadwiga was then known) be sent to Poland to rule few days after giving birth to a daughter who also died personally. young, but Jagiello succeeded her as king and founded The question of whether Maria or Hedwig, as the Jagiellon dynasty which ruled Poland for nearly two women, could rule Hungary or Poland should perhaps centuries. Jadwiga’s tomb in Wawel Cathedral became a have been a difficult one. England accepted female shrine and she was canonised in 1997. The chalice she succession in theory, but rejected it in practice when commissioned for the cathedral now sits in Dresden, a the Empress Matilda was driven from London in 1141 reminder in rock crystal of Poland’s female king. and prevented from succeeding her father Henry I. France had categorically banned succession in the JA’s book about the Angevin dynasties of Europe (900 to 1500) female line in 1328. In Hungary, however, there was a will be published later this year. He works in the partnership simple response to claims that women were not allowed office in London. 02 : Way of life Way of life IN CARACAS Sergio Casinelli often read in magazines about people referring in the early mornings; the city at dawn is filled with a to their daily life as their routine and what they stunning mist and light. do to escape it. I could summarize my ‘way of The Caracas traffic has become my friend: it gives me life’ as swimming the opposite way: trying to an opportunity to listen to news or commentators on bringI a little bit of routine to fast-moving, ever-changing current affairs in the morning, and at night allows me to days. And being of Italian descent, it is no surprise that briefly study the drivers and pedestrians that cross my my family is the element around which my routine has path. I find studying people fascinating. A slow drive circled. also allows me to pay more attention to buildings and Most of the day certainly follows no routine. Indeed, structures that are usually taken for granted. Caracas routine aspects can become challenging, but this has has a mixture of modern and traditional construction, embedded positive attributes in most caraqueños: an but it is the post-war buildings that I enjoy detailing the ability to react swiftly when faced with unforeseen most—they recall my grandparents’ modest apartment events, a tendency to look for creative ways to find where I spent most Saturdays, growing up. solutions, a sense of economy and of not taking things Dinnertime is less structured. But at some point the for granted, and a deeply rooted sense of looking out four of us sit down at the kitchen table and share some for your family. Coupled with the renowned Venezuelan space—although I have lost my battle for the TV to be good humor and a glass-half-full attitude, this creates turned off during that time.