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Well, Anon 9:25, did Mr Grayling (oh, awful man!) sit down one fine morning and make up these fees out of his own arbitrary authority? By no means. Primary legislation, duly considered by parliament, gave government the power to make such orders, and parliament can remove or limit that power at any time it likes. So just how does the judgment strengthen the authority of parliament?The Fees Order in question will have been approved by the legislature, presumably under the negative procedure. Many thousands of EU laws have come into force by means of SIs over the last 40-odd years, many of them of much greater importance than the somewhat trifling - though politically contentious - matter of employment tribunal fees yet I don't think any of them was ever overturned by the courts. The practical effect of this judgment, as the article makes clear, is to put a stop to tribunal fees altogether, at least for the time being, despite executive and parliament approving them, and to place on the taxpayer the burden of refunding litigants whose fees were in any case grossly disproportionate to the real cost of dealing with what are for the most part essentially "small claims". I think it's significant in this case (not in all, I agree) that the lower courts had previously found the increases lawful and that, according to our own professional organ, the SC's judgment was "surprising".

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