Franks said Nicholson was also his student.

"From the House, I would note (as I did) that when the Speaker was done, he was applauded by all sides of the chamber."

You say that like it's a good thing. I don't have any huge problem with the Speaker's ruling, but this arbitrary even handedness is positively corrosive.

The Conservatives have been making an argument–that an act of parliament somehow overrides an explicit constitutional power of parliament–that elementary school students know doesn't make any sense (i.e. the Constitution is highest law of the land). Bending over backwards to act evenhandedly–regardless of the merits of each side's argument–just allows those who are willing to be intellectually dishonest look like they're being reasonable.

As a country, we look incredibly weak and stupid if we must find our own government in contempt of the House on an issue where, as Milliken and other MPs have said, there are other, reasonable, possible solutions.

I don't have a problem with the ruling, and I think it was appropriate, but I'd just point out that, to my mind, we look equally weak and stupid as a country if we let our own government be in contempt of Parliament for five months when there are other reasonable possible solutions. I don't mind myself, but I can see why some people are upset that after five months of the government flipping Parliament the bird, when we finally get around to acknowledging the fact that our own government is openly showing contempt for the majority of our elected representatives, we give them two more weeks to try to stop being contemptuous. To my mind though, the two weeks isn't actually that big of a deal. It's the five preceding months that really gets to me. I get that we could look silly if our Parliament has to call the executive to task for ignoring them, but how do we look if we just let our executive ignore the majority of Parliament consequence-free? Again, I think the ruling's just fine, but if we do get to a point where we have to choose between "looking weak and stupid" and "looking like we're not a representative democracy anymore", I know which I'd prefer.

I agree, but (1) the government had to be given time to comply with the initial order of December 10th, (2) the privilege motions and subsequent responses had to be debated in the house of commons (and things tend to happen slowly when debate is required, for scheduling reasons etc) and (3) I wonder how much time it took Milliken and his aides to go through all the bog that is the procedural books and draft that ruling.

Listening to it, he was citing stuff that I never even knew existed, from pages deep within procedure books. I've seen less-well-researched and -argued theses that took longer to prepare.

That it took us five months to get to this point is a function of not only the actions of government, but the very institutions and conventions that we were trying to defend…so do we change the institutions and conventions so that we are more equipped to respond quickly to such situations? Or, do we look at this situation for what it is – something that should be an anomaly, rather than the rule, in democratic politics? (In other words, what's the real problem here – the government, or the form of parliament.)

This isn't a matter of finding an accommodation. It's a matter of following the rules. No one is asking the Speaker to "issue a fiat from above"–in fact, he has no power to do so; only to find a prima facia breach of privilege which he has.

And I have no problem with him giving both sides two weeks to work out the problem out among themselves. But the implication that both sides are at fault and that a compromise needs to be worked out IS arbitrary even handedness. The opposition has the right to whatever documents they want, they have no obligation to compromise as the law is clear in this matter and it is up to MPs to enforce their open will via contempt if necessary. Pretending this is an argument with two reasonable sides is not helpful–it just creates the appearence that there is a legitimate legal dispute where none exists.

Just want to clarify, I have no problem with the two weeks either.

"No, the house has the right to request documents."

Technical parliament has the right to order the production of documents (not request) and that power–as a matter of consitutional convention–can be exercised by either House. I was referring more informally to the fact the opposition represent the majority in the House and are the ones–in this case–demanding the docuements.

"And, the type of request has to account for the type of document and its intended use. That much was outlined in Milliken's ruling… The opposition had accused the government of intimidation of witnesses; Milliken saw no prima facie case to support that accusation."

I have no problem with either of those parts of the ruling. I have a problem with the Speaker trying to appear even handed by acting as if there are two legitimate sides to the central issue at hand (whether the government has the right to withhold these specific documents). He could simply ruled on the question at hand–in much the way that he did–without implying that there is somehow equivalence between the two sides. There isn't. One side is excerise its constitutionally garaunteed powers and the other is trying to frustrate that.

Oh, they're definitely in contempt. It's just taken months to take any official steps to do a single sweet thing about it.

I posit that it may be time to really consider separating the office of the Minister of Justice and the Office of the Attorney General.

I didn't say his ruling was arbitrary, I said his even handedness was. To quote just one section of the ruling where this even handedness on display:

"Finding common ground will be difficult. There have been assertions that colleagues in the House are not sufficiently trustworthy to be given confidential information, even with appropriate security safeguards in place…"

"The issue of trust goes in the other direction as well. Some suggestions have been made that the Government has self- serving and ulterior motives for the redactions in the documents tabled. Here too, such remarks are singularly unhelpful to the aim of finding a workable accommodation and ultimately identifying mechanisms that will satisfy all actors in this matter."