I cannot see the fact that s 7 of the 1981 Act of Parliament took away the hitherto existing right of a citizen to apply to this court under Ord 52 r 2 for leave to move for committal for contempt advances the Applicant's argument in any way. In practice prior to the Act, criminal contempts were prosecuted by or with the Attorney General's consent.

Parliament must be taken to know the law as stated in Gouriet and the previous authorities; and if it had intended the Attorney General's discretion to be reviewable by this court in this instance, in my view it would have said so. Furthermore, it seems to me apparent, that the court having jurisdiction to deal with it could itself have at least in theory, acted of its own motion if the Attorney General declined to institute proceedings or give his consent. Thus it was open to the Court of Appeal in this case when they were notified of the Solicitor General's decision to have taken this course. This seems to me to be the position at least in theory. I do not suppose for a moment any court would do any such thing; but if it did consider the matter, and decided either to institute proceedings of its own motion or not, that decision is plainly not reviewable.

Although the scope of the actual decision of the House of Lords in Gouriet has been much restricted by the introduction of judicial review, which now enables an individual with a specific interest to chalenge unlawfulness directly, so that it is no longer necessary to have recourse to a relator action, what the members of the House of Lords said about his constitutional position of the Attorney General's vis-a-vis the Court is not affected by this change.