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"'The Unison judgment turns the rule of law on its head, transforming it into a test that allows the courts, with the benefit of hindsight, to quash government decisions on the basis not of how they were made but of how they turn out in practice,' Laws writes."

Upon reading this part, I had to check the date to make sure we hadn't strayed into April 1st without me noticing - I was convinced it was satire! How dare the judiciary, "with the benefit of hindsight", exercise their exact function and consider a rule unlawful?

Surely this is the point of checks and balances. In my understanding, the Supreme Court didn't 'quash' anything - they backed Unison by saying that fees were unlawful, in that they effectively restricted access to justice (in what I thought was an impressive and well-reasoned judgment). The government then announced that fees would be abolished. Admittedly, there was little else they could have done, but this is not 'judicial overreach', it is the separation of powers acting exactly as it should. To put it crudely, if a law is actually unlawful, it should not be a law!