The legislators in the unelected chamber of Britain’s legislature have effectively blocked a bill that would separate the nation’s highest appeal court from the legislature. At present the chief justices are also legislators.
The so-called Lords voted by 216 to 183 to delay the Bill for months of scrutiny. The government is now expected to withdraw the Bill from the House of Lords and reintroduce it in the democratic chamber under a procedure that will not allow the legislators-for-life to prevent its enactment.
Chief Justice Woolf who recently attacked the plan for a supreme court outside of parliament said that the House of Lords should pass the Bill.