From the JCCF 

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms is providing lawyers on an urgent basis to two Canadians, David MacKinnon and Aris Lavranos, seeking a Federal Court declaration that Prime Minister Trudeau’s recent prorogation of Parliament is unreasonable and must be set aside.

When Parliament is prorogued, the parliamentary session is terminated, and all parliamentary activity, including work on bills and in committees, immediately stops.

Among its many grounds arguing that Trudeau’s decision to advise the Governor General to exercise her prerogative power to prorogue Parliament to March 24, 2025, this application argues that the decision to prorogue Parliament was “incorrect, unreasonable or both.” The court application, filed today, contends that the Prime Minister’s decision to prorogue “was not made in furtherance of Parliamentary business or the business of government, but in service of the interests of the LPC [Liberal Party of Canada].”

At his news conference yesterday, on January 6, 2025, the Prime Minister’s stated justification for the prorogation was (1) to “reset” Parliament and (2) to permit the Liberal Party of Canada time to select a new party leader. No explanation was provided as to why Parliament could not recess instead. No explanation was provided as to why Members of Parliaments could not immediately exercise their right to vote on a motion of non-confidence in the government. A majority of MPs have now repeatedly promised to do just that, which would trigger an election and provide the needed “reset” in a democratic and legitimate way.

No explanation was provided as to why a prorogation of almost three months is needed. No explanation was provided as to why the Liberal Party of Canada ought to be entitled to such a lengthy prorogation simply so it can hold an internal leadership race.

This Federal Court application includes language taken from a decision of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, which ruled in 2019 that then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson had prorogued Parliament unlawfully, as a means of avoiding Parliamentary scrutiny over the government’s “Brexit” negotiations concerning the departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union.

The application contends, among other things, that “in all of the circumstances surrounding it, the [prorogation] has the effect of frustrating or preventing, without reasonable justification, the ability of Parliament to carry out its constitutional functions as a legislature and as the body responsible for the supervision of the executive, particularly insofar as it relates to Parliament’s ability to deal quickly and decisively with especially pressing issues, such as the situation caused by President-Elect Trump’s stated intention to impose a 25% tariff on all goods entering the United States from Canada.”

“This prorogation stymies the publicly stated intent of a majority of MPs to bring a motion for non-confidence in the government and trigger an election. Prorogation serves the interests of the Liberal Party, but it does not further Parliamentary business or the business of government. It violates the constitutional principles of Parliamentary sovereignty and Parliamentary accountability,” stated lawyer James Manson. “We will invite the Court to conclude that the Prime Minister’s decision to advise the Governor General to prorogue Parliament was without reasonable justification.”

Applicant David MacKinnon feels strongly about this case. He stated, “This case concerns a living tree – our Constitution – and how that living tree withers without proper care. If we are to fight tyranny – for it is tyranny that confronts us – we must find the answer within the memory of our historical past. We call this memory ‘the common law.’ It is enshrined in the preamble of our constitution. The common law is the repository and guarantor of our justice and our wealth and happiness. Had we nurtured our living tree, and looked to our past, we would have read Lord Denning’s admonishment to the Attorney General of an earlier time: ‘Be ye never so high, the law is above you.’”

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Wallace White

The liberal parliament in the United Kingdom is on the brink of a collapse after a scandal involving mass rape perpetrated by migrant gangs rocked national politics across the pond.

Jess Phillips, the Home Office Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls and a Labour Party member, blocked an inquiry by the town of Oldham into Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s conduct while overseeing the prosecution of a migrant grooming gang’s sexual abuse of children in the town from 2011 to 2014, according to a Jan. 2 report from the Telegraph. The move prompted mass outcry and renewed attention to the UK’s ongoing crisis involving organized migrant grooming gangs, largely consisting of Pakistani nationals, stemming from waves of unchecked immigration.

Chiefly, critics accuse Starmer of failing to tackle migrant rape gangs when he headed the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) from 2008 and 2013, complicating his political situation amid calls for his resignation and a tanking approval rating. Starmer, in his capacity as prime minister, allowed illegal immigrants to apply for asylum even after arriving in the UK, according to the BBC.

In 2009, the CPS under Starmer dropped charges against a Pakistani grooming and rape gang in Rochdale — despite the prosecution having DNA and hours of video evidence of the crimes — claiming the teenage victim wouldn’t have been viewed as a “credible” witness, the BBC reported in 2012. The case was reopened in 2012 when Nazir Afzal took over as a prosecutor for the CPS, where he secured convictions for eight men involved in the gang.

Ex-detective Maggie Oliver, who helped uncover the abuse in Rochdale, said that Starmer is complicit in the mishandling of the investigations into the rape gangs, according to The Telegraph.

“The time is long overdue for a full national inquiry into the rape gangs scandal,” Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative Party leader, said on X Jan. 2. “Trials have taken place all over the country in recent years, but no one in authority has joined the dots – 2025 must be the year that the victims start to get justice.”

The Labour Party, led by Starmer, has had a historic polling collapse according to Sky News polling released Dec. 22., and for the first time, the party’s polling dipped below 27% despite winning one of the largest majorities in parliament history just five months prior. It is currently projected to lose its majority in the upcoming May election, and the Reform UK party, started by conservative politician and architect of Brexit, Nigel Farage, could supplant the Labour Party as the most popular in the UK and win a majority of seats, according to an analysis by the Telegraph.

The UK’s immigration policies remain one of voters’ top concerns, according to YouGov polling from Jan. 6. As of 2022, 14% of the UK’s population was foreign-born. Asylum seekers made up 4% of the foreign-born population in the UK the same year, and a majority were from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, India and Bangladesh, according to Migration Observatory.

Foreign nationals living in the UK are three times more likely to be arrested for sex offenses than British nationals, and twice as likely to be arrested for crimes in general, The Telegraph found.

Billionaire tech mogul and President-elect Donald Trump’s confidant Elon Musk, who has become increasingly outspoken about UK politics, accused Phillips on X of trying to protect Starmer amid his political struggles by squashing the national inquiry request. Musk’s interest in the scandal and recent involvement brought the issue international attention.

Starmer, in response to the public outcry, accused people of “jumping on the bandwagon of the far-right” for calling attention to the issue.

“It is so disrespectful it is beyond belief,” Sammy Woodhouse, activist and independent reporter covering the grooming scandal in the UK, said on X. “[Starmer is] branding people again as ‘far-right.’ This is not being ‘far-right,’ this is people having genuine concerns and outrage [sic] … we are talking about children being groomed, abused, raped, tortured, trafficked, murdered, blamed, ignored, impregnated, criminalized.”

Multiple local reports over the years have detailed the astonishing extent of sexual abuse by foreign migrants.

In 2014, a report from the town of Rotherham found that at least 1,400 girls were sexually exploited, mostly by Pakistani migrants, between 1997 and 2013. Local authorities were also apprehensive about identifying the ethnic background of the perpetrators for fear of reprisals. 

Ten members of the Labour council wrote to the Home Secretary, Conservative Amber Rudd, in 2016 claiming that allegations of abuse in the town of Telford were “sensationalized,” according to the Free Press. It was later revealed by The Mirror in 2018 that “up to” 1,000 underage girls were raped and abused there in what was deemed an “ongoing” crisis at the time, that started in the 1980s. The report claimed that authorities feared accusations of “racism” for sharing details about majority-Asian assailants.

Starmer’s office did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.