Shambles, here's my posting on another forum in reponse to the refusal of the ruling Liberal-led Canadian government to use constitutional powers to strike down a court decision in British Columbia that ruled possession of child pornography was legal. It may answer at least one of your questions.

Bob

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''Most Liberals are lawyers, Carol, twits trained to follow the principles of our judicial system, which is based on the law of case precedent. That means that when one bunch of twits (the House of Twits) passes a piece of legislation, the other twits (legal twits and judicial twits) must follow the law until a legal twit becomes inventive enough to convince a judicial twit that the law is wrong. This usually happens when a legal twit is discussing case precedent while doing illegal drugs with his twit buddies. The judicial twit is required to issue a ruling deeming the law to be unconstitutional, or contrary to the Charter of Rights, or prejudicial to a specific individual or group of individuals, thereby establishing a precedent. The remaining twits are required to follow the precedent in any subsequent court case or appeal until the case reaches the Court of Supreme Twits. If luck is on the side of the citizens (who, most of the time, are powerless to effect change), the Supreme Twits will rule on the side of what is right. More often than not, the Supreme Twits will adhere to case precedent established by other twits. Then the twit game starts over again. In the case of possession of child porn, the Liberal twits have decided not to use their own rules to overturn the judicial twit's decision (the Notwithstanding Clause, used only twice since our constitution was repatriated; Quebec - 1, Saskatchewan - 1, Canada - 0) and allow their friends, the legal and judicial twits, to fatten their wallets as part of a make-work project for legal and judicial twits.''