Rwanda Act: a constitutional crisis?

There are ‘ousters’ and there are ‘ousters’. I am referring, of course, to judicial ousters enacted by Parliament which seek to restrict judicial review of decisions by the executive. My colleague Nick Wrightson wrote last year (‘Lunges, parries & the ouster clause’, 173 NLJ 8036, p17) that under our constitution, Acts of Parliament are supreme and Parliament can curtail the jurisdiction of the courts if it so chooses. On a number of previous occasions—for example, R (on the application of Privacy International) v Investigatory Powers Tribunal and others [2019] UKSC 22, [2019] 4 All ER 1—such ousters failed because the courts held that such a clause will not protect a decision that is legally invalid, except by the most clear and express words. These examples illustrate what Mr Wrightson referred to as a ‘constitutional parry’. As he observed, Parliament has subsequently avoided this by more explicit language, such as in s 2