Who Gets the Last Word?

The dispute

After a tribunal ordered disclosure of advocacy correspondence, the Attorney General issued a certificate intended to override that decision. Journalist Rob Evans challenged the certificate. The Supreme Court considered the statutory veto and the separate rules governing environmental information.

The court’s reasoning

A majority held the certificate invalid, although the successful judges used different reasoning. Lord Neuberger's approach required clear legislative words before a minister could override a judicial decision merely by disagreeing. Lord Mance accepted a wider possibility of disagreement but required compelling, properly explained grounds absent here. Separate reasoning addressed environmental information under the applicable EU framework. Dissenting judges read the ministerial power differently. The result should not be simplified into a unanimous abolition of every possible veto.

Supreme Court case page, judgment and official summary. Especially paragraphs 52–59, 130–145 and the separate dissenting judgments.

Personal reflection

The feature I find most persuasive is the demand that authority engage with reasons already given. A formal review should alter the position of the person seeking it. If an institution can restore its preferred outcome without answering the independent analysis, the process risks becoming ceremonial.

Yet the statutory difficulty is real. Parliament had provided a power to issue a certificate, and a court interpreting that provision must explain how constitutional principle and legislative wording fit together. The disagreement among the judges is therefore central to understanding the case, rather than an inconvenience to remove from the account.

For me, Evans raises a question that extends beyond access to documents: what must change after an authority has been required to justify itself? Accountability cannot promise that the challenger will always win. It can demand that an adverse decision has consequences, and that powerful people cannot escape those consequences merely by repeating their confidence.

Reading the decision

Supreme Court case page, judgment and official summary. Especially paragraphs 52–59, 130–145 and the separate dissenting judgments.

These are historical readings of the named judgments, with separate personal commentary. They do not survey every later decision or legislative change and are not advice for an individual case.

The cited sources distinguish the judgment from any official press summary; the judgment is the authoritative account.