Building the Stonehenge Tunnel

The question of why Britain "can't build anything anymore" would not be of interest to most Americans, except in that it was similar to the inability of Western nations in general to get important works completed, including ourselves. But this is about Stonehenge, fascinating to many of us. My posts on Stonehenge years ago remain among my most-read. A group opposed to the Tunnel, having lost the political battle over years, applied for Judicial Review of whether all the steps had been completed.

Between a Rock and a Hard Case, 

 Put another way, the Stonehenge Tunnel was struck down by a court because a civil servant failed to put a piece of paper on the minister’s desk.

The law requires that the effect on every object be considered. The Stonehenge area is enormous, and includes Durrington Walls, The Avenue, the Circus, and hundreds of small sites within it.  They were all considered but the report given to the Secretary of State to sign did not include them all specifically. The Judicial Review ruled that the project was therefore a nullity.

In other words, JR is fulfilling two very different user needs. The user need of the court (if you can call it that) is to uphold the rule of law. The user need of the claimant is to try to put a stop to a decision. For the court, law is law; for the claimant, law is politics by other means.

The next sentence will be immensely controversial to lawyers, and common-sensical to everybody else. The overriding objective of JR should not be upholding the rule of law, but instead enabling good government. At least as far as government is concerned, the rule of law ought to be a means to an end, not an end in itself.

It's an interesting debate. We believe in the rule of law, and often technicalities matter. But for me, the fact that one side was acting in good faith and the other wasn't matters.  The project that the people of the area and the nation wanted, was considered by the requisite committees in entirety, was passed by Parliament and funded, and approved by the Secretary of State is now not going to happen.